Just what Unlim's need is more powerful gridding! Psst!....not one clue at all.

If the pure intention of the Limpet is satisfied, that any time you pick up a Limpet you'll need to head to SD to clear it, and that change makes the Limpet a far more powerful item than it has been in the past, then one counter-change would be to increase the cost of a Limpet so they're not cheap as dirt and you can't fill the map with them.

The way Limpets work today, it makes sense to me to just disable them. All they are is a red herring for the player who uses them, and a nuisance to the player who has to clear them. Yeah, I know they're useful for gridding, but that's not something I feel strongly about retaining.

Instead of disabling them, I'd like to get them back to their original intent, then take steps to balance them when this enhanced Limpet rule is used. This could include cost, as I said above, or other suggestions like clearing at Class 0 ports. From what I'm hearing, it would be easier to integrate this option of there was a cost but not a trip to SD associated with Limpets. What if we went all the way with it and said ANY port can remove Limpets, for a cost? Maybe the cost could have some variation as well, like other aspects of the economy, so some ports are cheaper than others and the cost floats. SD could be the cheapest, followed by Class 0 ports, then you'd pay more at other ports. Just some ideas.

I understand that this would be a significant change. And of course nobody has to use it. I just really think the Limpet is one of those features that has been almost completely undermined.

Singularity: "Using the exit enter trick to drain limpets can be pretty risky to the turns."

Ok, I thought the process of stripping Limpets was basically without cost unless you're in a time limited game with micrologin penalty. How does it effect turns? What is the "cost" associated with stripping Limpets in this way?

Yeah, I can see allowing Mine Disruptor to effect Limpets. We could add that to the list of ways to balance the Limpet back out after this change.

In unlim games, it doesn't matter how much you
make them cost. I can make 500m in hour with
team PSST. You can't stop that, and nobody will
play a game with high steal delays. There's just
no player demand for it, at all.

Making the limpet more powerful makes it very
easy to fill out the grid. Whether I drop 1x256 or
256x1, the cost is the same, but the power of
each goes way up. Now I don't mind that, I can
totally adapt my tactics to take advantage of the
new setting. But... it probably will not favor non
scripted players.



Not at all. I find a lot of people with limpets. You'd
be surprised how easy it is to forget them. This
change will make it easier to find ppl via limpets,
more people will forget to scrub. It will ensure
that red players do not grid until planets are mobile,
too.

You're thinking of limpets as a cluster tool, they
aren't. They're better used one or two per sector
in most (non-unlim) cases.

In unlims, limpets are a tangible and effective
defense, too. Very powerful, even now.



That's fine. Cost is irrelevant. If the cost per limp is
cheaper than the scrub cost, then limps are too cheap.
If cost per limp is more than the scrub cost, then the
scrub is too cheap and limps don't matter. it's all a
balance, and either way you go, one side will prevail.
You can't predict the cost per turn, which is where the
variance will be.



That's fine, I can script around it either way. Neither
will matter. We *DO* need a way to jack up the
defensive strength of class 0s, however, in the TWA.
Otherwise people will blow the class 0s to keep the
limps active. The max defense rating needs to go up
also.



Limpets are very powerful in today's game. I encourage
you to play in a corp environment, it will change your
opinion of the strength of limpets. While they may not
fit your preconceived view of how they should work, I
assure you they do matter.

You have to touch the sector to drain the limpets.
That means exiting the game either in-planet or
in-sector. That subjects you to haz, mine dets,
cannon blasts, etc. If someone is dtorping, and
the CPC is low, or you stick, or the server lags,
you can get caught and torped too. I've had it
happen.

A common technique in unlims for this is to use
plock. A person will be using a planet-based limp
stripper (exit-enter in loops). The opposite team
will plock on a sector and wait for the limpets to
start clearing. Then, depending on edit, pdrop,
crank up sector cannon or turn on citkilla. Blamo!



Nod. Do a 2:1 armid to limp ratio or something.
That would be a good way to balance this change
and keep it from being too powerful.

Sing: "In unlim games, it doesn't matter how much you
make them cost. I can make 500m in hour with
team PSST. You can't stop that, and nobody will
play a game with high steal delays. There's just
no player demand for it, at all."

I don't think there's much point in trying to balance anything against unlimited turns. The fact that costs are irrelevant in unlimited turn games (and mostly irrelevant even in lower turn games) just illustrates how broken the game has become. It works for you because your game is almost entirely tactical. But for the game to have a balance as a strategy game, there needs to be such things as turns and costs and relationships between earning and spending. Heck, why don't I just add a setting of "unlimited credits" and let you guys focus on what really matters in your games? Ok, yeah, I know, even if you have the potential to earn this much, someone can take away that ability and that's how to win. But still, you must admit that any balance that once existed between expected cashing rates and costs for ships and hardware has long been lost. I talk about restoring some balance, but that balance has to include costs and turns, because these are important mechanisms for achieving balance. Not just how many ms it takes to respond to an event.

Well there you go J.P. make changes is not really going to help New players.
Seems any new changes is only giving Sing and scriptwriters like him the overall
advantage you intended to take away from them.

The best fix is to fix know bugs for 3.13 , delay xport and planet scan .. and a fighter
issue that drops players.
Then later if all these new things have to come out , well then maybe a old style mode
that allows only 1 node per game (for that game) with a low time limit like the old days.

Of course those games may not be too popular , but the server could have several of them or a mix of games including one old school.

I think that opinions from top players/teams that say this is best for new players ..
verse opinions from others saying "I can script around that" or maybe this will fix it so I can do this .. should be carefully considered.

Top teams get there by doing .. and know what and how to do things , so if they are sincere and are thinking to help the new player .. listen .. they are probably right.

This is not ment as a disrespect , just an observation to help the masses to attain the same goal.

my 2¢ again.

Ok, just to clarify then, you're not concerned
about unlims then? If that's the case, I'll focus
on the effects of changes upon turns games.



The game hasn't been a strategy game since
multiplayer games came out.

The problem is: Cashing is a tactical endeavor.
Until you consider tactics, you can't balance
strategy. SST makes 12k a turn, SDT makes 19k
a turn. Making the wrong choice cuts income by
up to 36.8%.



Yes, people figured out how to use the bust field
to cash more effectively. Maybe you should just
add an option to support more than one bust per
port. That way people can't team SDT/SST and
have to trade a route of ports instead.

Granted, that makes gridding way more powerful.
But everything is a trade-off at this point.



Yes, but there's a quantifiable exchange rate
between both. If an extra 20ms means you get
torped 100 turns earlier, then that 100 turns can
be priced, and therefore the timing can be priced
too.

So changes in one will affect the other.

My skepticism comes from the fact that these analyses tend to consider one change with all else remaining static. It's going to take many changes working together to effect some change in the balance of power between scripters and non-scripters. There are ways to address any scripter's tactic, it's just a question of how much I want to change the game.

Take away unlimited time and unlimited turns, restore some balance in cashing to costs, do away with some overpowering tactics like pdrop and you have a game that isn't nearly as dominated by scripters. With any luck, you'll have a game that they won't even bother to play.

Right so like I have been saying all along. You want to break the game so no one will play it... but's I'm so confused as to why you would try and do that. Even more confuse as to why sysops would run this "new" software now... but at least the truth is starting to come out.

Sing: "The game hasn't been a strategy game since
multiplayer games came out."

Ah, but there's nothing intrinsic that says it can't be. The problem with TW is that the jump to multiplayer was merely one of interactivity and not at all one of design. With the exception of ship move and attack delays, which are widely ignored, nothing changed when TW became multiplayer. All I'm doing is looking at ways to restore the pre-HVS gameplay to the interactive game. Maybe it isn't possible, but I'm not yet convinced. It's not like it's impossible for strategy games to be multiplayer.

Your point about the evolution of cashing is well taken. I haven't even begun to crack open that can of worms. My preference would be for there to be no more than a 10% variance from baseline PPT to the most advanced cashing tactic. I would prefer for advanced tactics to be rewarded with superior cashing rates, but not so much that the tactic overrides long-term strategic decisions.

It would certainly be possible to support multiple busts on ports. Same basic issue as supporting multiple Limpets on a ship. I haven't done any real study of that issue, but if it would help, that's an option I could certainly provide. I could have that going in a few minutes.

Speaking of truth, your statement makes it pretty clear that you think you are "everyone". Just because I don't want players like you to play in certain types of games doesn't remotely equate to not wanting anyone to play the game. The fact is, for a large group of players, players like you spoil the game. You can't seem to see beyond your own limited understanding of the game.

Changes can be combined to re-balance things,
but then you can't know what the end result will
be. That sortof chaos ends up being a scripter's
paradise, since it leads to unforeseeable tactics.

The problem is, you can't really compete on a
time war w/ scripters. You're talking about a
group of a half-dozen ppl w/ hours to spend on
nothing but cracking the game and getting an
edge. Once one player finds it, everyone else
quickly hones in and writes their own version.

It's a distributed computing problem. One person
cannot fight that.



Well, but people want unlimited time and turns,
want pdrop (which isn't overpowering, that's a
myth. Pdrop is surprisingly underpowered). And
frankly removing those actually makes the game
MORE powerful to scripters. Be careful there.

But anyway, as long as its an option people won't
care. They just won't use it. The player demand
is FOR aggressive games. In the last 3 years I've
had dozens of people request slow play or old
school type games. Know how many actually show
up for the bang? 2, maybe 3. Most people that say
they want a balanced, nostalgic, old-school game
are lying. They come in, play for an hour, get bored
and leave.

On the other hand, I get only a few requests for
an unlim, but I frequently see dozens of players.
Sysops will design their games for the most players.
They won't provide games that don't get played.

Sucks your going to throw the people who do know the game "under the bus" but you have done it before so no big suprise there.

Here something else I'm confused on if we here at EIS aren't "everyone" with the understanding of the game and it's tactics why are you here talking to use, taking advise from us, needed US to test for you.... Where is "EVERYONE" cheerp cheerp... oh they are all playing that supper busy server with 100 nodes all used up waiting for someone to log of and to busy to respond right now.

The problem here is that sysops have to design
games that attract the most players. But that is
where our interests divulge a bit. While we want
the most players, you want the most servers with
the least number of players.

From our view, we do not want games that won't
get played. There's no "large group of players"
being spoiled by our style of play. There's only a
handful, and they come and go, and come back
later on. Games will never be designed for them
because they aren't serious enough to be repeat
traffic to a server. Sysops aren't interested in
providing games that don't get consistent draw.