Sample Narrow SS HP tech-thief
Jason Cawley
Gentlemen:
Well, thought I'd share a race recent race design; something of a
revision of older HP SS ideas based in part on the stuff in the "remote
ramping" threads and related "HP-boosting" things. This race has not
been tested yet, and in the wrong universe would get killed because of
it's narrow hab. It is meant to be a race for a roomy universe where
you can win through diplomacy (or at least have a fun ride :-) In
addition to just giving the example race, the reason for my post is to
ask the more experienced players here whether they think this sort of
thing is playable. Too narrow hab to get anywhere, or no?
Romulans
SS
IFE, NRSE, NAS
0.53/5.12g, -88/152C, 66/96mR
1/7 overall
19% pop growth
1/2500 pop efficiency
15/8/20 factories
G box checked
10/3/15 mines
Wpns, Con cheap, Bio expensive, rest normal
No start at 3 box
44 points left - mineral concentrations
Variant - Add ARM, increase mines operated to 16, move rad to 69/99,
leaves no points for min cons (a little riskier start, depending on the
Gcon drawn, for better long run minerals).
Meant for standard starts, medium or bigger universe. The narrow hab
makes the pop growth cheap; narrow field in rad to get that perfect on
the initial greens fairly quickly. Just decent HP econ, nothing
special. NAS livable with chameleons and robber barons; NRSE something
of a drawback for SS, but gives points and IS-10s are useful on beamer
BBs and to trek long distances in a bigger place. The "edge" of the
design is tech, of course. But with the cheap con and remote mining
abilities (or the ARM variant) the mineral-getting ought to be good,
too. Fields moved for points, and because bad yellows aren't very
useful for HPs, especially ones that can remote mine - IMO anyway.
Ought to be able to fill it's available planets fairly easily.
Drawback is the weak hab - not enough to win on econ strength,
certainly. But with alliances and such, as well as looking for
unsettled areas and getting there quietly, might work out ok. Whether
it is playable in that regard is really my question :-)
Personally, I think this sort of race would be fun to play regardless of
its chances, but I'm interested in people's opinions about those.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Steve Lamb
Jason Cawley <jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Romulans
>SS
>IFE, NRSE, NAS
>0.53/5.12g, -88/152C, 66/96mR
>1/7 overall
>19% pop growth
>1/2500 pop efficiency
>15/8/20 factories
>G box checked
>10/3/15 mines
>Wpns, Con cheap, Bio expensive, rest normal
>No start at 3 box
>44 points left - mineral concentrations
>special. NAS livable with chameleons and robber barons; NRSE something
>of a drawback for SS, but gives points and IS-10s are useful on beamer
>BBs and to trek long distances in a bigger place.
NAS is a no brainer with SSs. Quite livable once one gets the
Chameleon. But NRSE hurts way to much with NAS. A NAS SS needs to keep
scouts in space as long as possible. Getting a 97% cloaked rogue w/5
Chameleons gives a penscan range of about 67ly. It seems narrow but at that
tech level the scouts can sit at ~20ly and see everything. Even in a
medium/sparse 67ly is enough to get 2-3 planets in scanner range if the
placement of the scouts is precise enough.
>The "edge" of the design is tech, of course. But with the cheap con and
>remote mining abilities (or the ARM variant) the mineral-getting ought to
>be good, too.
Personally I'd get Electronics and Energy cheap and go Weapons and Con
normal. This is because the SS toys are on the two Es. Everyone else is
going to be hitting Weapons and Con quite heavily which only feeds into the
SS's spying capabilities. In the game I'm currently in my SS race is with
2-3 tech levels of the primary compitition with less than 1/3rd the econ.
My Con and Weapons grow almost as fast as the fields I do research actively.
>Drawback is the weak hab - not enough to win on econ strength,
>certainly. But with alliances and such, as well as looking for
>unsettled areas and getting there quietly, might work out ok. Whether
>it is playable in that regard is really my question :-)
>Personally, I think this sort of race would be fun to play regardless of
>its chances, but I'm interested in people's opinions about those.
Quite playable. My current race is a 1/6 SS and even though I am in no
chance of winning it has been one hell of a blast being a part of the
alliance I am in. SSs are excellent ar gurrilla tactics.
--
Steve C. Lamb | Opinions expressed by me are not my
http://www.calweb.com/~morpheus | employer's. They hired me for my
CC: from news not wanted or appreciated| skills and labor, not my opinions!
---------------------------------------+-------------------------------------
Robert Olesen
Jason Cawley wrote:
> Gentlemen:
>
> Well, thought I'd share a race recent race design; something of a
> revision of older HP SS ideas based in part on the stuff in the "remote
> ramping" threads and related "HP-boosting" things. This race has not
> been tested yet, and in the wrong universe would get killed because of
> it's narrow hab. It is meant to be a race for a roomy universe where
> you can win through diplomacy (or at least have a fun ride :-) In
> addition to just giving the example race, the reason for my post is to
> ask the more experienced players here whether they think this sort of
> thing is playable. Too narrow hab to get anywhere, or no?
>
I'm not one of the "more experienced players". I do have an opinion, though
;-)
> Romulans
> SS
> IFE, NRSE, NAS
> 0.53/5.12g, -88/152C, 66/96mR
> 1/7 overall
> 19% pop growth
> 1/2500 pop efficiency
> 15/8/20 factories
> G box checked
> 10/3/15 mines
> Wpns, Con cheap, Bio expensive, rest normal
> No start at 3 box
> 44 points left - mineral concentrations
>
Prop expensive would seem to be a good choice once you decide to go with NRSE
(which is a risky proposition, though the FM and IS10 helps). Might trade it
with start at 3 (getting the FM at start) or cheap Elec or Energy (haven't
got the wizard available, though) - or Hab. I would also consider switching
cheap Con with cheap Energy or Elec.
> Variant - Add ARM, increase mines operated to 16, move rad to 69/99,
> leaves no points for min cons (a little riskier start, depending on the
> Gcon drawn, for better long run minerals).
>
Why increase mines operated when you get ARM? I would think that going the
other way would free some points for better use elsewhere.
> Meant for standard starts, medium or bigger universe. The narrow hab
> makes the pop growth cheap; narrow field in rad to get that perfect on
> the initial greens fairly quickly. Just decent HP econ, nothing
> special. NAS livable with chameleons and robber barons; NRSE something
> of a drawback for SS, but gives points and IS-10s are useful on beamer
> BBs and to trek long distances in a bigger place. The "edge" of the
> design is tech, of course. But with the cheap con and remote mining
> abilities (or the ARM variant) the mineral-getting ought to be good,
> too. Fields moved for points, and because bad yellows aren't very
> useful for HPs, especially ones that can remote mine - IMO anyway.
> Ought to be able to fill it's available planets fairly easily.
>
> Drawback is the weak hab - not enough to win on econ strength,
> certainly. But with alliances and such, as well as looking for
> unsettled areas and getting there quietly, might work out ok. Whether
> it is playable in that regard is really my question :-)
>
> Personally, I think this sort of race would be fun to play regardless of
> its chances, but I'm interested in people's opinions about those.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Jason Cawley
Todd Rogers
Wow, I finally get to critique one of Jason's races.
Jason Cawley wrote:
> Romulans
> SS
> IFE, NRSE, NAS
> 0.53/5.12g, -88/152C, 66/96mR
> 1/7 overall
> 19% pop growth
> 1/2500 pop efficiency
> 15/8/20 factories
> G box checked
> 10/3/15 mines
> Wpns, Con cheap, Bio expensive, rest normal
> No start at 3 box
> 44 points left - mineral concentrations
> Drawback is the weak hab - not enough to win on econ strength,
> certainly. But with alliances and such, as well as looking for
> unsettled areas and getting there quietly, might work out ok. Whether
> it is playable in that regard is really my question :-)
I'd call that a big drawback. SS tend to not be liked (people just don't
trust us, I'm not sure why:), so using diplomacy to get growing room would be
tuff. Also it seems to me that with the slower ramp-up speed of an SS HP and
the lower hab you'll have a too many people on your HW very quickly. I'd
recommend taking LSP and using the points with some of those 44 extra to
increase hab a bit. Or you might (though less recommended) reduce growth to
17-18% and increase hab. And finally I'd suggest getting rid of NRSE, but
that's mainly for my personal style with SS.
> Personally, I think this sort of race would be fun to play regardless of
> its chances, but I'm interested in people's opinions about those.
Yep. That's the great thing about SS. It is very difficult to win with SS
vs. experienced players, but they are lot's of fun.
--
- Todd Rogers (y...@byu.edu)
Wasatch Stars!
http://www.et.byu.edu/~rogerst/stars/wasatch.htm
-------------------------------------------------
I've been asked what I mean by word of honor. I will tell you. Place me
behind prison walls - walls of stone ever so high, ever so thick, reaching
ever so far into the ground - there is a possibility that in some way or
another I may escape; but stand me on the floor and draw a chalk line around
me and have me give my word of honor never to cross it. Can I get out of the
circle? No. Never! I'd die first!
-Karl G. Maeser (founder of Brigham Young University)
--------------------------------------------------
Paul Hager
Jason Cawley <jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> writes:
>Gentlemen:
> Well, thought I'd share a race recent race design; something of a
>revision of older HP SS ideas based in part on the stuff in the "remote
>ramping" threads and related "HP-boosting" things. This race has not
>been tested yet, and in the wrong universe would get killed because of
>it's narrow hab. It is meant to be a race for a roomy universe where
>you can win through diplomacy (or at least have a fun ride :-) In
>addition to just giving the example race, the reason for my post is to
>ask the more experienced players here whether they think this sort of
>thing is playable. Too narrow hab to get anywhere, or no?
>Romulans
>SS
>IFE, NRSE, NAS
>0.53/5.12g, -88/152C, 66/96mR
>1/7 overall
>19% pop growth
>1/2500 pop efficiency
>15/8/20 factories
>G box checked
>10/3/15 mines
>Wpns, Con cheap, Bio expensive, rest normal
>No start at 3 box
>44 points left - mineral concentrations
>Variant - Add ARM, increase mines operated to 16, move rad to 69/99,
>leaves no points for min cons (a little riskier start, depending on the
>Gcon drawn, for better long run minerals).
>Meant for standard starts, medium or bigger universe. The narrow hab
>makes the pop growth cheap; narrow field in rad to get that perfect on
>the initial greens fairly quickly. Just decent HP econ, nothing
>special. NAS livable with chameleons and robber barons; NRSE something
>of a drawback for SS, but gives points and IS-10s are useful on beamer
>BBs and to trek long distances in a bigger place. The "edge" of the
>design is tech, of course. But with the cheap con and remote mining
>abilities (or the ARM variant) the mineral-getting ought to be good,
>too. Fields moved for points, and because bad yellows aren't very
>useful for HPs, especially ones that can remote mine - IMO anyway.
>Ought to be able to fill it's available planets fairly easily.
>Drawback is the weak hab - not enough to win on econ strength,
>certainly. But with alliances and such, as well as looking for
>unsettled areas and getting there quietly, might work out ok. Whether
>it is playable in that regard is really my question :-)
>Personally, I think this sort of race would be fun to play regardless of
>its chances, but I'm interested in people's opinions about those.
I guess my only area of disagreement is in your pop growth. About the
only HP design where I think 19% pop growth is appropriate is IS (for
obvious reasons). After a lot of mucking around, just about all of
my HP designs are 15% growth.
The SS HP has fascinated me for some time -- I played one for the
first (and only) time a year or so ago and finished a credible 3rd in
a game that ended on turn 100 (but could have continued). Since then,
I've come up with various refinements. One variant that I think is
playable has 13% growth. In any case, I think you should drop the
growth rate to 15% and buy hab. Also, I'd just take the advantage
points down to zero. If you get a really bad germanium start, so
it goes. And, that's mitigated by everyone else getting the same
(bad) concentration.
What I found with my own SS (which was otherwise similar to your
design) in the actual game was that I led in tech the whole game.
The wider hab was very useful and grabbing a couple of homeworlds was
very nice because I was able to convert them to major producers --
doubt I could have done that with narrow hab.
I'm not an SS expert by any means but I am an HP afficianado.
You do need population to support your factories, but I found that
with high growth I just end up with surplus pop that is not very
productive. With HP's, the key is finding the balance between factory
cost, support ratio, and pop growth. In my view 15/7/25 and 15% is
nominal. Factory cost 8 tends to be slow, and 6 is just too expensive.
Of course, achieving the ideal setup with SS is not practical because
you start out way in the hole with advantage points and you have
to surrender much of the SS advantage (tech espionage) if you go for
expensive tech.
Incidentally, if you want to stick with narrow hab, you could use
the points you get from dropping the growth to buy a higher factory
support ratio -- 25 if you can afford it. You might as well max
out your resources per planet. That is more thematic for an HP.
You might be able to squeeze out 15/8/25 plus a slight hab improvement.
Just a few thoughts from the HP wing...
--
paul hager hag...@cs.indiana.edu
"I would give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake."
--from A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS by Robert Bolt
Jason Cawley
Paul Hager wrote:
> I guess my only area of disagreement is in your pop growth. About the
> only HP design where I think 19% pop growth is appropriate is IS (for
> obvious reasons). After a lot of mucking around, just about all of
> my HP designs are 15% growth.
Well, my old HP SS races had hab like this but 24-25 operate factories,
plus ISB, with 16% pop. Rather like what you recommend (though perhaps
narrower hab than you use). I did find they had some "speed" problems
early on - not getting enough space from not having enough pop to grab
and hold places. And I've had good results with high pop growth, wider
hab HPs. I agree lower pop growth is more livable for an HP than for
other races, and I've had decent, though not spectacular, results with
wider hab, lower growth HPs.
Achieved pop growth is still a big factor in early performance - like to
year 50 or 60 or so. With the slower growing HP SS, I found myself
holding a fair number of good worlds at 50% of cap to get enough pop to
get new places going (captured territory, e.g.). With higher pop
growth, I can lift some during the "excess" phase and top off worlds to
capacity fairly soon; fewer breeders needed at lower holds too.
Some achieved pop growth figures -
15/x/25 factories want 25k econ year 50 -> 4.15 resources/1000 pop ->
6.024 million pop needed, minimum (all factories to pop maxed) -> 8.54%
achieved pop growth needed with 100,000 starting (15%) -> 57%
hab*crowding. With 16%, 105,000 starting -> 8.44% needed -> 53%
hab*crowding. Compare 19% with 15/x/20, 3.4 resources/1000 pop, 7.353
million pop needed, 120,000 starting -> 8.58% acheived pop growth
needed, only 45% hab*crowding.
Since a 100% world when held at 50% of cap gets .44 times to growth
from crowding alone, and the 45 average hab is more feasible than 53-57
without any immunities, I think the higher pop growth is likely to be
better. Of course, if you don't have space for 7.353 million pop,
you'll out of luck :-) But growing enough of it, not places to put it,
I find to be the problem in the first 50-60 years anyway.
Reasonably people will disagree about this sort of thing, of course.
In any case, I think you should drop the
> growth rate to 15% and buy hab.
Well, the narrowness of the hab does concern me. The typical strategic
idea with HPs is to be better at long run economic capacity; no question
that goes well with more factories operated plus wider hab. Those sort
of races can try to win from econ alone, provided they get through the
HG-ascendancy period with enough space. I like that approach with JOAT
HPS, for instance. But here the idea is mainly the tech, not long run
econ. The econ just has to be solid enough to support the tech things.
Whether wider and slower growth would work better, I'm not sure. Why I
ask :-) I do think the faster growth is better than going say from 21
factories operated up to 25. With hab this narrow, the pop growth is
awfully cheap - like 40 points per click or so, about 1 of the more
expensive 22-25 range factories operated.
Also, I'd just take the advantage
> points down to zero. If you get a really bad germanium start, so
> it goes. And, that's mitigated by everyone else getting the same
> (bad) concentration.
Sure, all get the same. But not as big a deal for an HG race to draw
Gcon 30, you know? Gcon 30 without min con points, the HGs are going to
be much stronger, relatively speaking, than the HPs. They are dangerous
as it is because of ramp-up speed issues. I like spending ~40 points on
the min cons for HPs only. I consider it "pro-HG acts of God" insurance
:-)
I found that
> with high growth I just end up with surplus pop that is not very
> productive.
Hold and top off. One use. I pack every world under 40% hab to the
brim; get everyone at least 250k. I don't want anyone waiting for pop
to grow anywhere if I can help it :-) Then the factories go up as fast
as they can compound (and not just 'til 50-67% of cap).
With HP's, the key is finding the balance between factory
> cost, support ratio, and pop growth. In my view 15/7/25 and 15% is
> nominal. Factory cost 8 tends to be slow, and 6 is just too expensive.
I agree there are trade-offs, and I also like factories cost 7. I use it
e.g. with JOAT HPs. But point wise, without altering other things, it'd
be 15% on 1/7 hab for 15/7/21 vs. 19% on same hab for 15/8/20. Going
from 15% to 19% is only ~160 points with 1/7 hab. It won't buy wider
hab, cost 7, and 25 operated. More like "pick one of those or the pop
growth".
> Of course, achieving the ideal setup with SS is not practical because
> you start out way in the hole with advantage points and you have
> to surrender much of the SS advantage (tech espionage) if you go for
> expensive tech.
Right. So I can't have all three of those other things. I can have 15%
pop growth and 1, and that isn't good enough IMO. But with the pop
growth I think I might live without the others (capacity/year 50 reasons
go through above, maxing out my worlds rather than having them around
50-80% of cap, etc).
>
> Incidentally, if you want to stick with narrow hab, you could use
> the points you get from dropping the growth to buy a higher factory
> support ratio -- 25 if you can afford it. You might as well max
> out your resources per planet. That is more thematic for an HP.
That's exactly what my older HP SS races were and did (OK, also paid for
ISB). I do think this is an improvement. Might try it ;-)
Useful comments, Paul. Thanks.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Jason Cawley
Steve Lamb wrote:
> But NRSE hurts way to much with NAS. A NAS SS needs to keep
> scouts in space as long as possible.
Use the fuel mizers.
Getting a 97% cloaked rogue w/5
> Chameleons gives a penscan range of about 67ly.
Can just settle for 1, with 45 LY range, and get a wee bit closer. And
don't have to pay for a whole Rogue once you have the ultracloak - a
frigate with ultras, shadow shields, chameleon (or robber baron later)
works fine. Need more coverage, build more of them; they are a lot
cheaper than rogues.
I don't like using rogues just for scouting work. I make 'em minelayers
and minesweepers too. For just "loiter time" the frigates work fine.
125 fuel and a light ship, the fuel mizers are good enough.
If they need gas, just go warp 3 and get a full tank pretty soon.
> Personally I'd get Electronics and Energy cheap and go Weapons and Con
> normal. This is because the SS toys are on the two Es. Everyone else is
> going to be hitting Weapons and Con quite heavily
Exactly. The toys are gravy; the spying points are the big thing. Put
the cheap fields where others will be spending most and you get twice as
much from spying there. I don't want the spying to keep me even with
people in the fields they have cheap; I want the spying to keep me
*ahead*.
which only feeds into the
> SS's spying capabilities. In the game I'm currently in my SS race is with
> 2-3 tech levels of the primary compitition with less than 1/3rd the econ.
Not a formula for winning IMHO. A winning formula might be "4 levels
ahead in weapons with 2/3rds the econ" :-) That's the sort of thing I
am aiming for; whether I'll get it is more problematic. But 2 levels
ahead and 1/2 the econ? Much more doable, with the cheap fields in the
right place.
> Quite playable. My current race is a 1/6 SS and even though I am in no
> chance of winning it has been one hell of a blast being a part of the
> alliance I am in. SSs are excellent ar gurrilla tactics.
Agreed. These sorts are a lot of fun to play :-)
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
ElCabalero
In article <6ffrbc$6...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>, Jason Cawley
<jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> writes:
>Personally, I think this sort of race would be fun to play regardless of
>its chances, but I'm interested in people's opinions about those.
>
Well, I'm playing a 1 in 7 SS right now in Startide, 3 cheap one normal,
with more mines and slightly fewer factories (14/7/18 facts, 10/3/18 mines),
and although I'm hardly dominating the game, I am thoroughly holding my own in
the middle of the pack, and just knocked down all of an IT race's bases in year
44 (thanks to my SD partner, there were only three to knock down).
It's a strong enough approach to have a chance, that much is certain.
Won't dominate without a lot of luck and extremely good diplomacy, but
certainly a contender. With an SD ally, a very strong one, since that gets you
both the early protection an HP needs, and the later defensive strength an SS
lacks.
--Mahrin Skel
No poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won
it by making other bastards die for their country.
--George Smith Patton
Jason Cawley
ElCabalero wrote:
> Well, I'm playing a 1 in 7 SS right now in Startide,
This is exactly the sort of info I'm looking for :-)
3 cheap one normal,
> with more mines and slightly fewer factories (14/7/18 facts, 10/3/18 mines),
> and although I'm hardly dominating the game, I am thoroughly holding my own in
> the middle of the pack,
Yep. That's what I'd expect, at least midgame. Has a certain
diplomatic point to it, too ;-) Unlike being the leader everyone is
gunning for...
and just knocked down all of an IT race's bases in year
> 44 (thanks to my SD partner, there were only three to knock down).
I've had a fun time with such attacks the few times I've played SS in a
big PBEM - which as set-pieces and planned things I just love :-)
> It's a strong enough approach to have a chance, that much is certain.
Useful. How is the tech race going, if you can tell? I mean, are much
bigger econs ahead? Or if it's no public, are you getting to field
things at least your local enemy doesn't have yet?
Course, I'd expect the real benefit of the tech to kick in a bit later
than year 44. But it'd help to know how it's going so far...
Another thing I'm curious about is space things - I mean, how many races
in how big a place; have you reached enough planets decent for you,
etc?
> Won't dominate without a lot of luck and extremely good diplomacy, but
> certainly a contender.
I wouldn't expect to dominate with one, surely. What I'd be aiming at
would be more like leading a league or being a partner, bent on taking
down the frontrunners. At the right time :-)
With an SD ally, a very strong one, since that gets you
> both the early protection an HP needs, and the later defensive strength an SS
> lacks.
I can see that would help. Even a fairly wide hab HG (JOAT, CA), plus
maybe an IT, might make a good combo. For early bulk, and IT strength
defense plus stealth. Have to worry about a wide partner running away
with things somewhat, though. I wouldn't mind shooting for an alliance
win, if a game let's that happen, but some "danger" from "friends", I
fear. (Not a stab, just them winning solo "beside" me).
I'd be interested in more details if you can share them without giving
away anything game-critical.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Jason Cawley
Robert Olesen wrote:
> Prop expensive would seem to be a good choice once you decide to go with NRSE
That's a fair point. I was thinking "keep everything decent" and that
people will spend a fair amount pushing from low prop to 12, say. Prop
expensive with NRSE is fairly popular :-) Well, if I am about the
middle of the pack econ-wise, by the time everyone else buys expensive
prop 12, I'll get 11 or so just from spying. I mean, just seems sort of
neat :-) Ok, so I may have to spend a little on it for a level or two,
but basically they buy it for me. Also, I was thinking "gee, I'll need
16 at some point to get the rest of my grav terraforming".
But it's a fair point. The same spying thing is going to make it
livable, and might get more resources from a cheaper field elsewhere.
Or a bit better hab, say, for the points from making it expensive.
> (which is a risky proposition, though the FM and IS10 helps). Might trade it
> with start at 3 (getting the FM at start)
Naw, I'll just buy that - level 2. Not like an SS's starting ships are
worth anything...
or cheap Elec or Energy (haven't
> got the wizard available, though) - or Hab.
Good uses. I'd be inclined to take energy cheap, but it might be the
hab is a better investment (Paul is telling me I need more hab, and can
live with less pop - so I'm considering things like 18% pop for better
hab anyway - your suggestion might make the better hab a bigger
improvement).
I would also consider switching
> cheap Con with cheap Energy or Elec.
I don't think so. I know those are popular with SS races because they
help you get toys - especially elec. And earlier ultra cloaks are
useful, no question. But con is something people will run high in, and
spend a lot on. That means I pick up more of a resource/research gain
from the spying if I put a cheap field there. Also gets me remotes
sooner (for more G - HP "remote ramping" thread stuff), and let's me run
for nubians with the biggest guys later.
Have to look at things long term to have a shot at a win, it seems to
me. I mean, people will want weapons 24-26, and soon. They may settle
for con 13-16 for a while, but once the weapons are done people will
want nubians and superlatinium. Including some big, leading races -
some of which will have con expensive. That's an awful lot of spying
:-) 3.5 times for expensive vs. cheap, 1/2 for spying, gives 1.75.
They might easily pay nearly half the cost for me if around one race in
4 makes it that high.
I'm not so worried about losing a race for nexi - I'll have normal
expense, spying, and plenty of incentive to buy it. But lot's of other
people will stop at 11 for some time, or never make it beyond it (get
killed first e.g). Same sort of comment for best shields.
Understand, I expect to live and fight the whole game - I expect the
tech to be maxed or close to it before we are through. Meant for a
larger game and all. What sort of tech do people shoot for then?
23-26-12/16-26-19-7/25. Well, put the best spying in the "26" fields.
That's where the money is :-)
> Why increase mines operated when you get ARM? I would think that going the
> other way would free some points for better use elsewhere.
Well, it's 12 points. I have only the 15 mines operated and standard
remote mining with the other (main) variant. But I spend 44 points on
min cons - +11/11/33 to mineral concentrations (where the 33 is being
fairly random of course).
With ARM instead of min cons, I worry more about not having enough G
from the HW early on. If the minimum concentration for G is 41, with
higher likely, 15 mines operated should get my factories up to my HW
hold level (50%) without too much delay. The mining ships will only
build after that (with cost 3 planetaries, no early remote is going to
be better than the planetaries, assuming I can operate them). ARM will
get me more minerals, cheaper, later on. And mining ships that gate, an
important plus in a big galaxy. But without the min con spending, its
the early G that I have left to worry about - normally 15 mines operated
isn't really enough to support 20 factories operated smoothly - with 44
points on min cons I figure it will be enough for the HW alone, and
after that I'll have remotes working to get more. 16 is a little better
(though 18-20 would be more comfortable), without the min con boost.
Useful comments, especially the expensive prop idea. I'll consider that
and Paul's lower pop growth suggestion (which, miser that I am, I'll
only drop to 18% not 15% :-) for wider hab, and see how it looks.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
ElCabalero
In article <6fi8mt$1...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>, Jason Cawley
<jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> writes:
>> It's a strong enough approach to have a chance, that much is certain.
>
>Useful. How is the tech race going, if you can tell? I mean, are much
>bigger econs ahead? Or if it's no public, are you getting to field
>things at least your local enemy doesn't have yet?
It's not public, but I expect me and my team-mate are leading in general
tech, and equivalent or close to it in any particular area. As far as our
local enemy goes, we have him outclassed in every field but Prop, where we
don't care (we both have IFE, and ranges are 1-2 year trips).
>
>Course, I'd expect the real benefit of the tech to kick in a bit later
>than year 44. But it'd help to know how it's going so far...
Hopefully, it's going pretty well.
>
>Another thing I'm curious about is space things - I mean, how many races
>in how big a place; have you reached enough planets decent for you,
>etc?
Space is *very* tight, Startide was a knife-fight from the word go, 16
players in a small/packed. Planets are scarcer than I'd like, but not so
dramatically so that I feel I'm in immediate danger. Defnitely time to acquire
some more, though....
>
>With an SD ally, a very strong one, since that gets you
>> both the early protection an HP needs, and the later defensive strength an
>SS
>> lacks.
>
>I can see that would help. Even a fairly wide hab HG (JOAT, CA), plus
>maybe an IT, might make a good combo. For early bulk, and IT strength
>defense plus stealth. Have to worry about a wide partner running away
>with things somewhat, though. I wouldn't mind shooting for an alliance
>win, if a game let's that happen, but some "danger" from "friends", I
>fear. (Not a stab, just them winning solo "beside" me).
Yeah, I can see that. Startide was 2-person teams, so I could count on the
support of the SD, that helped a lot. Also let us tune our habs for minimum
overlap.
>
>I'd be interested in more details if you can share them without giving
>away anything game-critical.
Well, the main effect seems to be that it tunes the race for earlier in the
game, since the relatively low amounts of early terraforming have a *big*
impact on the quality of your worlds. Since, unfortunately, this race predates
the RM HP concept, my biggest problem has been getting enough G. I think that
with that, I'd be much stronger economically than I am now.
Jason Cawley
Jason Cawley wrote:
> Useful comments, especially the expensive prop idea. I'll consider that
> and Paul's lower pop growth suggestion (which, miser that I am, I'll
> only drop to 18% not 15% :-) for wider hab, and see how it looks.
Well, here are the revisions I came up with. If I take prop expensive,
18% pop, 40 points left for min cons and the same basic hab scheme (2
wide, one narrow) I can have 1/6 hab that is one click from 1/5.
0.24/4.16g, -136/136C, 66/96mR. About 1/4 more worlds green I figure,
with 1/2 eventually yellow. Not a huge pick-up, but might well be
better; I'm still likely to have enough pop to fill places.
If I take that, another trade is possible, making for a riskier start
but might be worth it - LSP and no min con points for factories cost 7.
18% and LSP is worse than 19% no LSP, of course. But in a standard
start for example, the LSP econ hit isn't so big a deal, while cost 7
factories are of course strong. Does leave me without the min con
boost, though. A risk, but then playing this sort of race is a risk
:-)
What to those who have commented think of the revisions, and the last
trade? Is 18% and prop expensive w/ close to 1/5 hab better? I think
it probably is. How about the cost 7 factories for LSP and no min con
boost? Seems awful tempting to me...
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Jason Cawley
ElCabalero wrote:
> It's not public, but I expect me and my team-mate are leading in general
> tech... As far as our
> local enemy goes, we have him outclassed in every field but Prop, where we
> don't care
That's quite encouraging :-)
> Space is *very* tight, Startide was a knife-fight from the word go, 16
> players in a small/packed. Planets are scarcer than I'd like,
That's a lot tighter than I was thinking of trying this sort in.
Startide was 2-person teams, so I could count on the
> support of the SD, that helped a lot. Also let us tune our habs for minimum
> overlap.
Has to help quite a bit. I'm not thinking for teams, though. But then,
I am thinking "more space per race".
> Well, the main effect seems to be that it tunes the race for earlier in the
> game, since the relatively low amounts of early terraforming have a *big*
> impact on the quality of your worlds. Since, unfortunately, this race predates
> the RM HP concept, my biggest problem has been getting enough G. I think that
> with that, I'd be much stronger economically than I am now.
Yeh, I think that'd have to help :-)
If you have comments on the changes I'm considering after other's
comments (prop expensive, 18% pop for better hab 1/6 close to 1/5 -
still two wide one narrow - also possible cost 7 fact for LSP and no min
con boost, standard start assumed) I'd be interested.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
ElCabalero
In article <6fidqq$l...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>, Jason Cawley
<jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> writes:
>If you have comments on the changes I'm considering after other's
>comments (prop expensive, 18% pop for better hab 1/6 close to 1/5 -
>still two wide one narrow - also possible cost 7 fact for LSP and no min
>con boost, standard start assumed) I'd be interested.
Well, except that mine was 15/8/20, it sounds like the final version of my
new RM HP tech-thief SS. I certainly hope it's viable. ;-)
Warren Start
I'd like to jump in here. I'v been playing CA and need to branch out and
have been attentive to this thread. I'v fiddled with it and would like some
input on the following.
SS
IFE, NRSE, OBRM, NAS
0.31/3.2g, -120/120C, 20/80mR
1/4 overall(2 click from 1/3)
20% pop growth
1/1000 pop efficiency
5/25/5 factories
G box not checked
10/3/12 mines
Bio, Prop expensive, rest 50% less
No start at 3 box
I would have liked mineral concentration, or even higher amount of factories
operated. Felt that without the need for G for the factories and the high
pop growth, was a decent trade off. Would have resources for terriforming
(have to get used to not getting it for free). Since I'm fairly young as a
Stars player (if I' green, does that mean I'm habitable<g>), I doubt that
I'd try this in a PBEM game until I'v tested it for a while, but would like
to see where this thread will go now.
Waszer
Jason Cawley
Warren Start wrote:
(sample factoryless SS tech "pirates" idea...)
... would like some
> input on the following.
> SS
> IFE, NRSE, OBRM, NAS
> 0.31/3.2g, -120/120C, 20/80mR
> 1/4 overall(2 click from 1/3)
> 20% pop growth
Without immunities or being CA, even 20% pop growth just isn't going to
get enough econ, it seems to me. Sure, you'll be fast at the start and
good at tech. But you won't have the econ to build things, IMO. Also,
in my experience factoryless races do better with ISB - need to spread
out, build ships in many places, etc.
> 1/1000 pop efficiency
> 5/25/5 factories
> G box not checked
> 10/3/12 mines
Standard factoryless settings.
> Bio, Prop expensive, rest 50% less
> No start at 3 box
Well, might consider one more field normal. That last tech move is a
lot more expensive than the previous ones. Better to spend that on hab
in some way. Elec is the obvious candidate if using one immune as
suggested below (want the energy cheap for that terraforming).
I think a more promising way of doing this in terms of the pop growth
you'll achieve is either 1. go with one immune two narrow, then put as
many points as you can spare into the hab width (will have econ capacity
problems from number of worlds, but will be able to grow the pop) or 2.
keep at least reasonable, default-like or only slightly improved
factories - with or without the one immune idea.
Would have resources for terriforming
> (have to get used to not getting it for free).
Well, quite. It makes a huge difference for factoryless ideas. Other
types need something to raise habitat values, as well as a high pop
growth rate (TT, or immunity, or both - maybe IS without but even that
is borderline).
E.g. add ISB, make pop growth 19%, grav immune, the others 40 wide each
and reasonably centered (14 from right edge). 10/3/13 mines. Make elec
normal expense. That's 1/5 hab, almost 1/6. But one-immune values, and
a big effect per bit of terraforming (essential when you are paying full
price for it and factoryless, thus your main "economic investment").
Can also get rid of NRSE if you want with one extra normal field, or get
rid of NAS (only gives 24 points for SS with 5 LRTs) by taking 11 mines
operated, or mines cost 4 (and move a range a bit), or narrower one
click in one narrow hab field.
That gives about 1/2 of all worlds eventually useful, but some deep
enough yellows to be quite hard. More like 1/5 to 1/4 really useful
places soon. Not a lot of econ possible with just those and no
factories, but you'll get the ramp-up speed (with the immune-narrow
scheme that is) and the good tech.
I still don't think the econ is very promising. If you narrow the hab
further to 2*30 one immune, can get back reasonable factories and have a
sort of poor man's HG that is great at tech (gave an example of that
sort of SS race here a while ago). Of course that defeats the "no
expenses besides tech" idea, though.
There is no getting around the fact that CAs are going to give fabulous
factoryless (or pseudo-factoryless) performance with settings that would
be unplayably bad, econ-wise, for any other race. The one-immune
factoryless tech thief SS might be playable, in a smaller place (more
ramp-up speed issues, etc). But barely, IMHO. It just doesn't have the
econ...
Compare it's "space capacity ratio" = SPR with the HP idea. The HP gets
~1/5 hab, about the same as the factoryless with one immune. Both
eventually can use 1/2 of all worlds, with neither being particularly
good at using the worst yellows (55 resources max for the factoryless on
a yellow, more for the HP but has to put up factories first). The
initial capacity and ultimate capacity things are going to look
something like this (HP/factoryless)
Initial Greens terraformed + yellows
Max 3400/1100 " "
portion ~1/5 both 1/5 3/10 both
ave hab 50/67 90/95 50/67
SPR 340/147 612/209 510/220
So the HP has 2-3 times the econ capacity per planet controlled. The
factoryless race might get more worlds and might get to it's capacity
somewhat sooner, but it isn't going to get twice as many worlds, let
alone 3 times as many. And the 1/5-1/6 HP is not exactly going to be
leading in econ itself. It's just too big a capacity hit.
Now, if you could about double those capacity figures with close to
default factories, might be more doable. But you can't with the same
sort of hab. If you make the factories a bit better (15-16 operated
e.g.) you can get enough capacity with like one immune 2*30-32 or so.
But then you are a "poor man's HG" not a factoryless race (see earlier
thread on that if you are interested in that race type).
Sure, ditching the immunity will get more capacity; but you won't get to
it. Landing on 30% hab worlds that need 2000 or more resources of
terraforming to get to 50% or so is not going to cut it, even with 20%
max growth. Those are the sorts of values you'll get with no
immunities, on a lot of your worlds, not being CA. 50% average
hab*crowding with 125,000 starting pop and 20% max growth means a little
under 15k econ at year 50. And it's not like it is going to be
gangbuster growth afterwards, either - you need places for ~15 million
pop. With 1/3-1/4 hab that is going to cause crowding, and slow the
growth.
By constrast, same hab*crowding with the HP gives 8.2 million pop from
1% slower pop growth (18 vs. 20 on ~50 ave. hab values) - but 28k
capacity from that pop. Less crowded too, unless the factoryless
version gets a lot more space.
Note that the SPR of a TT CA isn't far from that of the HP, once all
worlds can be lived on (it'd be 1100 with all 100; not going to get
that, but with 30% terra and say 3*40 1/2 of all worlds will be 80-100
or so - maybe 800 SPR say - with no effort to work up yellows, that's
competitive with what the HP gets and 2-4 times what the SS factoryless
will get).
With the immune factoryless, the capacity will be a bear. But getting
the achieve pop growth won't be. If you can get enough space, livable -
but "enough" is on the order of 60-120 planets controlled (60 with all
yellows already worked up - not going to happen by year 50) for 25k
econ. Not very likely for the 120 figure is my judgment, unless it's an
awful big galaxy (and then others are going to be bigger, too).
Anyway, just some ideas on factoryless SS races and the problems getting
them to work...
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Warren Start
>Without immunities or being CA, even 20% pop growth just isn't going to
>get enough econ, it seems to me. Sure, you'll be fast at the start and
>good at tech. But you won't have the econ to build things, IMO. Also,
>in my experience factoryless races do better with ISB - need to spread
>out, build ships in many places, etc.
Well, of course your right, unlike the factoryless CA I'v tested, the SS
starting tech is awfull, no auto terriform (ugh!), I think I'v been spoiled
playing CA. I played around some more and still haven't found a happy
medium that has a chance of producing decently. I know this is off the
thread, you and the others have talked about 1 immune (gravity). The cost
for immune vs max width is substantial. I understand being immune your
habitat is based on the other 2 hab ranges and even with max width you would
get deducted if gravity is not centered, ok the question is, taken the cost
in account, is max width vs immune somtimes better because of the points
left over for other things?
Waszer
Jason Cawley
Warren Start wrote:
I think I'v been spoiled
> playing CA...
Could be. I consider them so unbalanced I won't play them anymore. I'm
getting to that point with JOATs too - not quite there yet, but close.
IMHO, playing CAs is fine for intermediate players or beginners, or vs.
AIs. Experts playing humans with CAs is - well, somewhat
unsportsmenlike would be how I'd put it :-) Just a personal opinion, of
course. A game of all CAs would be very boring...
ok the question is, taken the cost
> in account, is max width vs immune somtimes better because of the points
> left over for other things?
Sure, sometimes. Though a little less than max width won't really kill
you either. But they are not close in effect at all. The immunity more
than triples the number of eventually perfect worlds (no TT, no CA) for
example. Pop growth is mainly a result of hab values, not widths. Econ
ramp up speed is in turn mainly an effect of pop. Width primarily
determines ultimate economic capacity per bit of space controlled (while
also helping ramp up and pop growth slightly - but very slightly
compared to an immunity).
If the only reason you want to live on a full range's worth of hab
values is to increase your economic capacity, might take full width or
close to it without an immunity. An HP race might be an example -
growth mainly a function of factories for a while anyway, strategic idea
being to get 2000-4000 resources on average per planet controlled,
winning the endgame (late, so growth rates matter less) with that
muscle.
But a factoryless race needs higher pop growth achieved to run with the
other races. The only way to get it (besides being CA; some IS
work-arounds but not really enough alone) is to raise habitat values.
Why does it need higher? Well, get's 1 resource/1000 pop, vs the 2.5-4
figures other races get - so need an extra 2.5-4 times factor in 50
years or so from better pop growth - that's 1.85% - 2.81% faster pop
growth needed. Have to get that much, about, from the advantage points
(growth, immunity, hab, etc) and the "terraform early" spending
strategy. A little less being Ok with the lower expenses, of course.
1 100% world grows as much pop at its maximum rate as 9 33% worlds or 16
25% worlds. To a factoryless race (CA, maybe IS exceptions) low-value
worlds aren't worth diddly.
Also, with immune-narrow you get all the attributes perfect soon (or
close to it) - not just the immune one. You start with the immune one,
and that's good; but the narrow ones give more bang for the terraforming
buck, too. Getting 2 ranges decent with one still way-out is not nearly
as good as all three near perfect. Less spent on terraforming overall,
too.
Immune narrow can be difficult sometimes in terms of # of planets
useful, time spent working up the needed yellows, or limited minerals in
your rocks. It gives less econ capacity for the points. But without
question it raises ramp up speed, and significantly so, and factoryless
races need that.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Robert Olesen
OK, I had a go at the wizard - and came up with this. Probably a waste of time :-)
It's not an HP and not an HG.
SS
IFE, NRSE, NAS, LSP
0.24/4.16 -100/156 66/96 1 in 6
19%
1/1500
13/8/13, no Gbox
10/3/16
Energy, Weap, Con cheap - Elec normal - Prop, Bio exp.
The 13/8/13 was taken to get a faster rampup and save some G. I know I can get more
facs in the long run by going to e.g. 11/8/x, but it's going to cost more to get
them up and probably require the Gbox checked. Which reminds me: Why is it so
popular to take more mines operated (short term profit) instead of increasing
efficiency (long term profit)? Is it because the minerals typically do not run out
in the period covered by a normal game?
I ran a test in small packed with an SS and an IS expert computer opponent. I did
very little MM (crash-colonising, shipping some minerals but not checking it all)
and did not colonise all available greens. I researched for Frigates with
Colloidals and Shadow shields first (to meet those beta DDs), then Ultra cloacks,
then Arm BBs and built a fair number of frigates and armed starbases. I got 13k in
2450 and Arm BBs around 2469. Not very good, but not very bad either. I did not
remote mine at all (good minerals at the HW) but I would probably have done so in a
human game. Still, there were a decent number of planets available, and this race
might do well with OBRM, freeing some points for pop efficiency or factories or
hab.
Robert Olesen.
Jason Cawley
Robert Olesen wrote:
>
> OK, I had a go at the wizard - and came up with this. Probably a waste of time :-)
> It's not an HP and not an HG.
>
> SS
> IFE, NRSE, NAS, LSP
> 0.24/4.16 -100/156 66/96 1 in 6
> 19%
> 1/1500
> 13/8/13, no Gbox
Ugh. Boy, that's ugly on the econ IMO...
> 10/3/16
> Energy, Weap, Con cheap - Elec normal - Prop, Bio exp.
>
> The 13/8/13 was taken to get a faster rampup
Faster ramp-up? With 1/1500 pop efficiency? I don't think so. Giving
away small amounts of pop efficiency for small factory improvements are
rarely a good idea - some limited cases, maybe, staying 1/1300 or
better. 13 eff is too expensive for the benefit anyway.
I note that this race has essentially 0 net points from the tech and LRT
screens. Some going into the econ screen from narrower hab bringing in
more than the pop growth costs.
and save some G. I know I can get more
> facs in the long run by going to e.g. 11/8/x, but it's going to cost more to get
> them up and probably require the Gbox checked.
Not really. You could take 11/9/14 factories, 10/3/12 mines for the
same points for instance - with no G box. That gives 2540 max planet
size, vs. the 2356 you have now - +7.8%. And it will certainly ramp up
faster. "What? With 11/9 vs. 13/8?" Yes, with 1/1000 vs. 1/1500 and a
19% growth rate! The pop resources are 50% higher. All worlds (besides
HW, and minor difference there) start with just pop. Might think of it
as starting with factories cost 12, not 8, then the cost falling as the
factory portion of the income rises. The pop efficiency is going to be
faster. Free is cheaper than cost 8.
Or you could take 18% pop with 11/9/16 fact + 10/3/13 mines. You can
remote mine, after all.
Which reminds me: Why is it so
> popular to take more mines operated (short term profit) instead of increasing
> efficiency (long term profit)?
It's because one mine costs 11-12 advantage points and +.1 eff cost
more like 60 - 5 mines operated. You won't deplete to low cons with
11/3/10 mines, not for an awful long time. So the 10/3/15 that costs
about the same will get a lot more minerals. Late, you can remote mine
anyway.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Shane Kearns
Well, since i've recently played a technocrat SS race that did
reasonably well in medium/sparse (standard start), here's my take on
the thread.
The race as played was mineral limited (particularly G, since all my
nearby planets had G concentrations below 30). However once the
Robber baron came into play, a neighbouring JOAT provided all the
minerals I could need. Those same planets were swimming in iron, so
my main limitation on battleships was the G for battle nexi.
SS (naturally)
ISB, LSP, NAS, OBRM - ISB for the refuelling space dock and better
defence of the ultrastation. The others for points, and extra planet
size.
I avoided the traditional IFE/NRSE combo because deep penetration
missions need ramscoops, and the fuel mizer doesn't cut it. The lack
of warp 10 made beam battleships unviable since I can't get the speed
with warp 9 engines.
Economy:
1/2500
15/7/25 factories (G box)
10/3/15 mines (not nearly enough mining ability here)
Radiation 70-100mR, others moderate and decentred (about 1/9)
15% growth (livable for HP)
Tech: weapons, con and electronics cheap, bio expensive. Cheap
electronics made a big difference and was well worth it. Early
ultracloaks, followed by using nexi/jammer 30s against
supercomputers/jammer 20s. Expensive bio slowed down the robber baron
more than I'd like, but tech trading helped.
Comments on play:
Diplomacy and a good poker face are needed to get this race through
the first 70 years. Bluffing is easier when you are SS, as nobody
knows whether they can't see your battleships because they're cloaked
or because you don't have any. Don't even consider using this type of
race with public scores or accellerated BBS (no time to research
propulsion, and pitiful resources compared to the HG races).
Prevent other people trading with the MT. Torpedo destroyers with
primary target of freighters work well - you only need to kill one
freighter to prevent the trade.
Todd Rogers
Shane Kearns wrote:
> The race as played was mineral limited (particularly G, since all my
> nearby planets had G concentrations below 30). However once the
> Robber baron came into play, a neighbouring JOAT provided all the
> minerals I could need. Those same planets were swimming in iron, so
> my main limitation on battleships was the G for battle nexi.
From my experience an SS shouldn't plan to get your minerals from
neighbors (especially from a JOAT). It's often a lot of work and very
costly to steel minerals from experienced players and bring them home
again. Usually I rely on my own mines/remote miners and use my robber
barons to keep the enemy from getting the minerals (steal then jettison in
space). I only try to take them home if I have enough cloaked freighters
and I'm going against an enemy that hasn't yet figured out that the best
way to detect a 98% cloaked robber fleet is to have a grid of scouts all
through their space.
> SS (naturally)
> ISB, LSP, NAS, OBRM - ISB for the refuelling space dock and better
> defence of the ultrastation. The others for points, and extra planet
> size.
my personal preference is to take IFE over ISB, but as I said that's just
my play style.
> Economy:
> 1/2500
> 15/7/25 factories (G box)
> 10/3/15 mines (not nearly enough mining ability here)
> Radiation 70-100mR, others moderate and decentred (about 1/9)
> 15% growth (livable for HP)
Here I'd make some changes (mainly for improved hab, mines, and pop
resources)
> Tech: weapons, con and electronics cheap, bio expensive.
I'd also do prop expensive my self (for points)
> Cheap
> electronics made a big difference and was well worth it. Early
> ultracloaks, followed by using nexi/jammer 30s against
> supercomputers/jammer 20s. Expensive bio slowed down the robber baron
> more than I'd like, but tech trading helped.
This is often the case with SS.
> Comments on play:
> Diplomacy and a good poker face are needed to get this race through
> the first 70 years. Bluffing is easier when you are SS, as nobody
> knows whether they can't see your battleships because they're cloaked
> or because you don't have any.
Boy, I love SS :-) This is a standard HP SS strategy: fence sit for 50+
years while researching and building economy so you can compete with other
races, and rely on the paranoia of other races to keep them from attacking
you.
> Don't even consider using this type of
> race with public scores or accellerated BBS (no time to research
> propulsion, and pitiful resources compared to the HG races).
It's actually possible (especially with good diplomacy), but *much*
harder.
> Prevent other people trading with the MT. Torpedo destroyers with
> primary target of freighters work well - you only need to kill one
> freighter to prevent the trade.
Actually I haven't tried this before, but it seems to be a great idea.
Anyway them's my 2 bits.
Paul Hager
Jason Cawley <jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> writes:
>Jason Cawley wrote:
>> Useful comments, especially the expensive prop idea. I'll consider that
>> and Paul's lower pop growth suggestion (which, miser that I am, I'll
>> only drop to 18% not 15% :-) for wider hab, and see how it looks.
> Well, here are the revisions I came up with. If I take prop expensive,
>18% pop, 40 points left for min cons and the same basic hab scheme (2
>wide, one narrow) I can have 1/6 hab that is one click from 1/5.
>0.24/4.16g, -136/136C, 66/96mR. About 1/4 more worlds green I figure,
>with 1/2 eventually yellow. Not a huge pick-up, but might well be
>better; I'm still likely to have enough pop to fill places.
> If I take that, another trade is possible, making for a riskier start
>but might be worth it - LSP and no min con points for factories cost 7.
>18% and LSP is worse than 19% no LSP, of course. But in a standard
>start for example, the LSP econ hit isn't so big a deal, while cost 7
>factories are of course strong. Does leave me without the min con
>boost, though. A risk, but then playing this sort of race is a risk
>:-)
Yes, but worth it, I think. My wide-hab SS in the one game where I
used it was 15/7/20. I don't recall that my Germanium on my HW was
all that good initially but I lucked out by hitting an 80% world with
excellent G right next door. In any case, my view is that you
accept the low probability of a really bad start by increasing your
chances for the average start/game. The problem with any hedge is
that you sacrifice upside potential in order to minimize downsize
risk. Given that you are already playing SS, I think you should
operate more aggressively -- thus I heartily support your changes.
> What to those who have commented think of the revisions, and the last
>trade? Is 18% and prop expensive w/ close to 1/5 hab better? I think
>it probably is. How about the cost 7 factories for LSP and no min con
>boost? Seems awful tempting to me...
See above.
> Sincerely,
> Jason Cawley
Paul Hager
Jason's mention of how unbalanced CA was reminded me of a thread
from a few weeks back when this was discussed in the context of
having terraforming cost 1/2 normal as a "fix". This would be
the way CA used to be before the Jeffs enhanced CA.
One thought I had as an alternative, that I didn't mention at the
time, was to simply subtract advantage points from the CA PRT.
Make it, say 10-20 points less than IT. I suggest this only
because I assume that it is the easiest possible programming
fix. Eliminating the "instaforming" code is almost certain to be
more involved which, in turn, increases the probability of bugs
being introduced in the "fix".
Just a thought...
Shane Kearns
On Tue, 31 Mar 1998 08:50:19 -0700, Todd Rogers <y...@byu.edu> wrote:
[snip]
>From my experience an SS shouldn't plan to get your minerals from
>neighbors (especially from a JOAT). It's often a lot of work and very
>costly to steel minerals from experienced players and bring them home
>again. Usually I rely on my own mines/remote miners and use my robber
>barons to keep the enemy from getting the minerals (steal then jettison in
>space). I only try to take them home if I have enough cloaked freighters
>and I'm going against an enemy that hasn't yet figured out that the best
>way to detect a 98% cloaked robber fleet is to have a grid of scouts all
>through their space.
I agree, if I played the same race again I'd try and find the points
to not have OBRM (the planetary mines weren't _that_ awful, but I got
bad draws on germanium).
The JOAT in question did use a scout grid, which was good enough to
prevent denial attacks (I'd lose most RB ships before they reached
their target). So I only used denial attacks vs his allies.
The way he provided me with minerals was me sending 5 large freighters
and an RB ship along with my BBs/bombers, provided the base went down,
there'd be no factories/mines (thanks to LBU74s), and no surface
minerals left (or at least 6.5MT of Germanium/Ironium stolen). Those
minerals start turning into more warships a lot faster than waiting
2-3 years of bombing, 1 year to colonise and then unload.
btw, try putting robber barons on your super fuel transports - that
way if your rogue gets killed (its an armed ship), you have another
chance to steal.
Jason Cawley
Paul Hager wrote:
> Yes, but worth it, I think... thus I heartily support your changes.
Yeh, I think I'll take the cost 7. Useful comments. Thanks for your
help.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Nachtergal Philippe
Paul Hager wrote:
>[...]
> One thought I had as an alternative, that I didn't mention at the
> time, was to simply subtract advantage points from the CA PRT.
> Make it, say 10-20 points less than IT. I suggest this only
> because I assume that it is the easiest possible programming
> fix. Eliminating the "instaforming" code is almost certain to be
> more involved which, in turn, increases the probability of bugs
> being introduced in the "fix".
>
> Just a thought...
> --
Thufir
Todd Rogers
Shane Kearns wrote:
> The way he provided me with minerals was me sending 5 large freighters
> and an RB ship along with my BBs/bombers, provided the base went down,
> there'd be no factories/mines (thanks to LBU74s), and no surface
> minerals left (or at least 6.5MT of Germanium/Ironium stolen).
Yep, a very good standard procedure. Send the RBs with the battle fleet to
keep him from putting a base back up (your LBU74's seem to work well too:-).
> btw, try putting robber barons on your super fuel transports - that
> way if your rogue gets killed (its an armed ship), you have another
> chance to steal.
Yep. If you want to send them in with other ships (or not fully cloaked) fuel
transports make good RB ships. For the more conventional go in and steel what
you can from under his starbase 98% cloaked ships tend to survive better.
Paul Arnold
In article <6fr8si$6...@sheepskin.cs.indiana.edu>, hag...@cs.indiana.edu (Paul Hager) writes:
|>
|> Jason's mention of how unbalanced CA was reminded me of a thread
|> from a few weeks back when this was discussed in the context of
|> having terraforming cost 1/2 normal as a "fix". This would be
|> the way CA used to be before the Jeffs enhanced CA.
|>
|> One thought I had as an alternative, that I didn't mention at the
|> time, was to simply subtract advantage points from the CA PRT.
|> Make it, say 10-20 points less than IT. I suggest this only
|> because I assume that it is the easiest possible programming
|> fix. Eliminating the "instaforming" code is almost certain to be
|> more involved which, in turn, increases the probability of bugs
|> being introduced in the "fix".
I agree completely with your suggestion unfortunately I don't think that
anything is/will be done. In some comments that Jason made just before his
"retirement", he indicated a number of fixes for the race wizard to get to
more reasonable costs. These included the costs for CA & Joat plus a number
of additional costs for all manner of wizard items that are not in line with
having a good balance. (Example: cost of NAS for a Joat.)
In a subsequent thread on game problems, I placed a post indicating the
balance problem in the race wizard. Jeff McBride replied that he is not going
to make changes because it would only shift the point of optimization and that
imbalances would still remain, i.e. would not really fix anything. The
solution is to wait for the new model in Supernova, about a year away at this
point.
An alternative we have as players is to ban races from games and the much more
tedious approach to require unused race design points for certain race
designs. This all gets very complicated, especially the latter alternative
and is probably close to impossible to impliment. The best alternative seems
to be the outright banning of races in games. I would hate to see that happen
but it has happened in the past with HE, so there is a precedent.
I am close to setting up my own games to get rid of CA and possibly Joat.
Really tired of games where the theme seems to be everyone gang up on the CA
monster. I guess it is time to get creative and not join in on open games
for future play. I do think that Jeff McBride had a point of shifting the
point of optimization but I can't help thinking that following suggestions
from a knowledgable player such as Jason wouldn't make for a much improved
situation, not perfect but much improved.
Paul Arnold
Thomas Pfister
In article <6fu9li$f...@news.sei.cmu.edu>,
IMO, you miss the point. Sure CA´s do in testbeds much better then other PRTs
and you could make results no other PRTs could come even near. But testbeds
are not games. In games all PRT have the possibility to get instaforming as
long as CAs are in the game. Most CAs are willing to trade CoHs or to help
with CoHs. I have usually in games 100+ CoHs traded away or helped with and
know that most other CAs did in these games too.
Each race anyway of it PRT has this way a fair chance to gain free
TF and therefore a chance to win.
Why does it nethertheless seems to be that CAs and a few other PRTs like JoaTs
or ITs made in most cases the victory and other PRTs like SS in example not
very often? The answer is quite simple, look into the thread with Jasons
HP-SS, you find very often words in the posts like this, couldnt win with the
Design ofc, but it will be fun to play. And thats correct, _SUCH_ SS Designs
are unable to win, they are Toy-Races. Maybe its fun to play with these
Toy-Races as long as they have no competive counterpart, but if there is a
competive counterpart the Toy-Races are dead. Obvious. But that doesnt mean
that not a _WELL_ designed SS (or other PRT) could do similar competive like a
CA or a JoaT, only problem, you find rarely such well designed SS-races,
because the intention of the race-designer of SS-Races is most to put as many
toys as possible into these races instead to design these races to give them
the ability to do competive. You end up with races with small hab, low growth,
HPs, low mineral settings, etc., or at least some of it. After the game starts
you hear these players after a while whining about the few greens they
found, even the ones they found are not too good, are in the meantime
inhabited by someone else, have a low mineral concentration and so on, and
they stopped early on to play serious. At least these players say that the
race wizard is unbalanced and they wish these damned CAs to hell, instead to
accept that only their poor race-design and gameplay is the really reason for
their problems and to learn to do next time better.
OTOH player who play PRTs like CA, JoaT or IT design their races in general to
win a game, more or less successful of course. They whine not about
unfortunate circumstances they try to solve the problems one after another and
this way after a while things look much better.
So its IMO more a problem of the players who like to play Toy-Races instead of
an unbalanced race wizard that makes CAs, JoaTs, etc in games more successful
then SS in example.
Nethertheless i think the race wizard could need some improvements.
Just my opinions.
Thomas
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Sjaak Zomer
On Thu, 02 Apr 1998 04:25:41 -0600, 101....@germany.net (Thomas
Pfister) wrote:
<huge snips about non-CA/JOAT/IT are played less powerhouse-based>
Hi Thomas,
I do think that you are right and wrong.
Right because I have seen racedesigns completely design around the
higher cloaked value. They start to run for the high-cloaks and forget
about building up an empire. Wrong because your three races have got
an good economic advantage.
CA because terra forming costs nothing. Even at 100 pop worlds. IT
because they can transfer pop and need less battleships because they
are where they are needed and JOAT because they have very cheap
scouts. An Fuel-Mizer Scout is all what you ever need.
I do think that the pen-scans are too expensive, not in resources but
in tech. The first pen-scan comes with tech elec7 (Ferret Scanner
185/50) at this moment the JOAT has already got an 280/70 range with
NAS and 140/70 without it. To compensate their should be an low-tech
pen-scan. Lets say the Mole Scanner with an 100/20 range, just enough
to get the pen-scans somewhat sooner, but in the long run an almost
useless scanner. Just like the standard tech4 JOAT scanner is. With
this new scanner searching for habitat planets would be somewhat
easier without destroying the big advantage of the JOAT.
Now the CA. yes, that instantterraforming is a big advantage, and I do
not agree with the statement that because OA can be given away this
would be compensated. How many CA's are giving away their ships!?? I
have to guess, but I don't think that many... Of course there are
exceptions. The best way to solve this would be letting to pay the CA
for their terra forming. Maybe at 50% or at 25% or even at 10%, but
anything that can prevent the stupid thing that 100 CA colonists can
turn an -45 into an 100% world.
The IT is an completely different subject. I think that the best way
to solve this is letting them use an sort of JumpGate like the MT
gives out. But actually I don't think this is an good idea. OTOH they
need to get that base setup first, so the advantage is big but its not
instant. So the advantage is not like the CA/JOAT's.
On the other hand the SS have got also an very good edge. Invisible
ships. So if we start tearing away all those advantages we end up with
less viable races.
Just my 0,01euro.
Sjaak Zomer
Ron Hiler
Hey all,
Just my little bit of input.
I am in the middle of hosting a 16 player game, where, during setup, I
allowed no more than 2 of each PRT. I thought that would give the game
a bit of variety.
Well, the two CA's have completely dominated the game. It's not even
close. The scores are something like CA1 - 8000, CA2 - 6000, JOAT -
2000, everyone else ~ 800 - 100. We're about 100 years into it, or so.
Oh, well, at least it gives everyone else something to rally against.
We're making a good try of it, but I have no doubt that one of the CAs
is going to end up winning the game.
So, yes, IMO, the CA PRTs are a completely unbalanced monster race. If
I ever do a setup like this again, I'm going to ban CA's :( I don't
mind a bit of healthy competition, but scores like that are ridiculous,
and I don't particularly want to spend every single game killing the CA
monsters.
My (U.S.)$0.02
Ron
--
So Brain, whatdya wanna do tonight?
Same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!
Sjaak Zomer
On Thu, 02 Apr 1998 06:31:05 -0800, Ron Hiler <bnd...@pacbell.net>
wrote:
>Hey all,
>
>Just my little bit of input.
>
>I am in the middle of hosting a 16 player game, where, during setup, I
>allowed no more than 2 of each PRT. I thought that would give the game
>a bit of variety.
>
>Well, the two CA's have completely dominated the game. It's not even
>close. The scores are something like CA1 - 8000, CA2 - 6000, JOAT -
>2000, everyone else ~ 800 - 100. We're about 100 years into it, or so.
>
<rest snipped>
Yes, this is the same type of thing I am seeing also. In a game I once
played all races got 50 years to develop without any wars at all. You
probably never guessed who was number 1. Yes, an CA-TT.
If you give them time to research the good terraforming you are going
to be swamped, especially in the larger versions, which I prefer.
One answer is to dis-allow CA into play of Large/Huge galaxy (in other
situations they would probably never reach the full potential of
Monsterhood). Another is to force them use expensive bio with TT, but
this will only be good for the short term.
The best way is to get the Jeffs to change the instant-terraforming.
What about terraforming for CA is still free, but they must have the
resources to do so. They don't actually spend the resources but for
each point of terraform the planet must have got the normal needed
resources. The limit of the terraforming is then based on the resource
level of that world, just like ordinary races.
Example: World 20 klicks off perfect, and the CA has got the terraform
power to change it into perfect. The world have got 120 resources.
This world can terraform 1 klick each turn for free. If the CA is an
TT and is has got 140 resources it could terraform two klicks each
turn.
Sjaak Zomer
RBKOZ
>Sjaak Zomer wrote:
[snip]
>The best way is to get the Jeffs to change the instant-terraforming.
[snip]
I will say it again. The best and easiest way of balancing the CA is to remove
instant-terraforming as recommended above, and to make CA similar to the SD in
that their specialty is utilized through their ships. CA would therefore be
able to terriform by using terriformers only, just as SD requires minelayers to
lay mines. CA already gets bonuses using their own terriformers. People upset
about this method could call for increasing the bonuses, but I believe they are
quite adequate.
B. Koz.
ElCabalero
In article <6fvp0n$2vr$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, 101....@germany.net (Thomas
Pfister) writes:
>So its IMO more a problem of the players who like to play Toy-Races instead
>of
>an unbalanced race wizard that makes CAs, JoaTs, etc in games more successful
>then SS in example.
>
Basicly, you're full of it. I could put that more politely, but I won't,
sinced you were blunt, I will be as well.
A CA's econ advantage is both extreme and unbalanced, not just for
testbeds, but in general. When I can design a 1 in 93 CA that can actually be
a contender, something is wrong. Why, may I ask, should a 1 in 14 CA HP with
ARM, IFE, ISB, and TT be a reasonable, non-"toy" race, yet a 1 in 7 SS with few
"toy" LRT's (basicly just IFE) has, in your opinion, no chance to win?
SS and the other PRT's cannot be economically competitive with CA's, and I
would agree that perhaps that is how it should be. However, the difference is
so extreme that other factors being equal the CA will win every time, unless
everyone in the game recognizes him for the threat he is and gangs up on him.
If you would take issue with that, then show me a non-CA or non-JOAT design
that is not a "Toy", and would have reasonable odds of success in a 1v1 contest
(WM under certain circumstances, I'll grant that).
You can't, and I'll tell you why. When taking a non-economic PRT, in order
to win, you have to play your tactical strengths (which comes from toys)
against their economic strength. Taking expensive fields that keep you from
getting your toys, or LRT's that work against them, is by definition
anti-thematic. However, in practice, we are finding that pulling that trick is
not practical, the "Big Hammer" knocks you down anyway.
Trying to fight a purely economic game against CA's and JOAT's with a
tactical PRT is not just unwinnable, it's stupid, in the process of trying, you
give up your tactical advantage as well, and wind up with nothing at all. We
don't design 3-cheap 1-normal SS's because we're inexperienced and overloading
on "toys", we do it because if SS is going to compete with CA monsters, that's
the only way they can do it.
ElCabalero
In article <3525a609...@news.supernews.com>, zome...@caiw.nl (Sjaak
Zomer) writes:
>Yes, this is the same type of thing I am seeing also. In a game I once
>played all races got 50 years to develop without any wars at all. You
>probably never guessed who was number 1. Yes, an CA-TT.
>
>If you give them time to research the good terraforming you are going
>to be swamped, especially in the larger versions, which I prefer.
>
I'll go one further. Let *any* TT CA, regardless of how narrow in hab, get
to TT20, and you'll never stop him unless you're also a TT CA. Over and over,
I've seen this with a 1 in 93 CA, if it didn't get killed before then, it
didn't even matter how tactically desperate the position was, it would bounce
back and romp all over everybody once TT20 was reached.
ElCabalero
In article <352376c6...@news.supernews.com>, zome...@caiw.nl (Sjaak
Zomer) writes:
>Now the CA. yes, that instantterraforming is a big advantage, and I do
>not agree with the statement that because OA can be given away this
>would be compensated.
If his statement were true, then a change so that CA only got terraforming
for free by using OA's on their own worlds would not reduce their econ
performance. Anyone want to argue that?
Jason Cawley
Thomas Pfister wrote:
> IMO, you miss the point.
IMO, you ignore the problem.
Sure CA´s do in testbeds much better then other PRTs
> and you could make results no other PRTs could come even near. But testbeds
> are not games. In games all PRT have the possibility to get instaforming as
> long as CAs are in the game.
Bullhockey. One, only allies of CAs do. Two, OAs are not instaforming
- they require some investment and don't raise the habs until later as a
result of that, resulting in a smaller effect on acheived pop growth.
Three, races in non-team games would have to assume they get a CA
alliance to take advantage even of the OAs - because it is the busted
race wizard costs for worked-around narrow hab that cause the
imbalance. They'd have to design on the assumption they will get tons
of OAs soon to game the wizard the way CAs can - and if they didn't
they'd just be busted.
All that is gaming the wizard and none of it is even decent race
design. It's just a giant loophole. Nothing else.
> Each race anyway of it PRT has this way a fair chance to gain free
> TF and therefore a chance to win.
Bullhockey.
> Why does it nethertheless seems to be that CAs and a few other PRTs like JoaTs
> or ITs made in most cases the victory and other PRTs like SS in example not
> very often? The answer is quite simple, look into the thread with Jasons
> HP-SS, you find very often words in the posts like this, couldnt win with the
> Design ofc, but it will be fun to play. And thats correct, _SUCH_ SS Designs
> are unable to win, they are Toy-Races. Maybe its fun to play with these
> Toy-Races as long as they have no competive counterpart, but if there is a
> competive counterpart the Toy-Races are dead. Obvious. But that doesnt mean
> that not a _WELL_ designed SS (or other PRT) could do similar competive like a
> CA or a JoaT,
Bullhockey. Any race you design that is neither JOAT nor CA, I can turn
into a JOAT with few if any changes that will beat holy tar out of the
original race. Why? Because the effects from being JOAT add several
hundred advantage points. NAS being no liability, start at 3 box not
being needed, +20 planet capacity, similar effects on space capacity
ratio and pop growth, etc. Buying those same things in the wizard costs
200-350 points. Those points spent on something else to improve the
econ will always improve the race. Thus going from any non-JOAT design
to a JOAT design will result in a bigger, badder, meaner race. More for
some starting designs than for others, but always an improvement.
Also, the CA is even worse in this regard. Any race you make that isn't
a CA I can make a CA that will be stronger than it, just by making it
CA. Some JOATs being the only and minor expecption (those the CA will
be about as strong, with faster ramp but more even later on). Why?
Because the instaforming will automatically raise the acheived pop
growth. And effectively wider hab. Take any reasonably playable race
you design that is not JOAT or CA and narrow every hab range 15 clicks -
look at the free points involved.
It has nothing whatever to do with race design diligence. It's just
unbalanced things in the wizard itself.
Now, if a straight HG-type SS race liable to get better econ and thus
warfighting performance than a HP narrow tech-thief one? Sure. But it
won't get near what a JOAT with the same settings plus all the extra
points will get - it'll just get smashed by such a JOAT with
approximately equal play. Even more so for a CA.
Now, some *minor* edge in the wizard and/or econ things for races
without the warfighting specials makes some sense. But econ is big;
bigger than the race wizard takes into account in the loopholes for
these sorts of races. Design knowledge and the like has absolutely
nothing to do with it.
Here's my challenge - give me any non-CA, non-JOAT race design that you
think can't be improved by being turned into a CA. After you do that
and prove that the CA I throw back after is worse, you can lecture to
your heart's content about whining. If you can't, you haven't a leg to
stand on making that sort of comment.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Martin Leslie Leuschen
I'm gonna be a little sarcastic, but then you were not kind either.
Thomas Pfister (101....@germany.net) wrote:
: IMO, you miss the point. Sure CA´s do in testbeds much better then other PRTs
: and you could make results no other PRTs could come even near. But testbeds
: are not games.
Right. In testbeds, there is no diplomacy. Now which race is the best for
diplomacy? Which race did the Jeffs *design* for diplomacy?
: In games all PRT have the possibility to get instaforming as
: long as CAs are in the game. Most CAs are willing to trade CoHs or to help
: with CoHs. I have usually in games 100+ CoHs traded away or helped with and
: know that most other CAs did in these games too.
Also right. Now: did you give them to your *enimies*? I thought not. So not
only are CAs stronger economically due to instaforming and diplomatically due to
CoHs, all of their allies are stronger as well. I fail to see how this balances
anything.
: Each race anyway of it PRT has this way a fair chance to gain free
: TF and therefore a chance to win.
It is far from fair. CA allies have a much better chance than CA enemies.
: Why does it nethertheless seems to be that CAs and a few other PRTs like JoaTs
: or ITs made in most cases the victory and other PRTs like SS in example not
: very often?
Because they have serious economic advantages and in Stars! economy is King.
The Jeffs plan to change this in SuperNova, because it peeves them too.
: The answer is quite simple, look into the thread with Jasons
: HP-SS, you find very often words in the posts like this, couldnt win with the
: Design ofc, but it will be fun to play.
You have, in one sentence:
- Cast aspersions on Jason's ability to design playable races.
(This is just silly.)
- Implied that winning is much more important than having fun.
(I don't know about you, but I play Stars! to have fun.
Winning is a way to have more fun, but should be secondary.)
: And thats correct, _SUCH_ SS Designs
: are unable to win, they are Toy-Races. Maybe its fun to play with these
: Toy-Races as long as they have no competive counterpart, but if there is a
: competive counterpart the Toy-Races are dead. Obvious.
It is perfectly fine to design a race that is fun to play rather than strong
unless the Host forbids such things. Due to CAs. ITs, and JOATs, in larger
galaxies that is your only option these days with other PRTs.
: But that doesnt mean
: that not a _WELL_ designed SS (or other PRT) could do similar competive like a
: CA or a JoaT,
Not economically. A SS starts with fewer points and gets virtually no growth
related advantages. I'm sure Jason can post figures in terms of absolute pop
growth rate if you want, but I'll just state it. A CA and SS, both HGs designed
along the same lines (by Jason, say), will not have comparable economies by 2450.
The CA will have twice the resources or more. The SS PRT advantages will not make
up for that given equally skilled players.
: only problem, you find rarely such well designed SS-races,
See above. You do realise that you have just implied that most SS players are
poor race designers, I hope.
: because the intention of the race-designer of SS-Races is most to put as many
: toys as possible into these races instead to design these races to give them
: the ability to do competive. You end up with races with small hab, low growth,
: HPs, low mineral settings, etc., or at least some of it. After the game starts
: you hear these players after a while whining about the few greens they
: found, even the ones they found are not too good, are in the meantime
: inhabited by someone else, have a low mineral concentration and so on, and
: they stopped early on to play serious.
Well, there is a lot of whining going on, I agree. Stars! is a considerable time
investment and it's annoying as hell to be stomped.
Still, the whiners (And I have been one.) have a point about the balance
factor, just like they did about the old 4% HEs, or the even older delf-destruct
metamorphs. By such methods Stars! is improved.
It's much easier to not whine when you are stomping the opposition to atoms.
: At least these players say that the
: race wizard is unbalanced and they wish these damned CAs to hell, instead to
: accept that only their poor race-design and gameplay is the really reason for
: their problems and to learn to do next time better.
: OTOH player who play PRTs like CA, JoaT or IT design their races in general to
: win a game, more or less successful of course.
You can't have it both ways.
Either:
a) The race wizard is balanced.
or b) CAs, JOATs, and ITs have serious, unbalancing economic advantages,
which pushes people designing their race for victory to choose
these PRTs.
Unless you mean that in some way people who like the economic PRTs are
somehow superior?
: They whine not about
: unfortunate circumstances they try to solve the problems one after another and
: this way after a while things look much better.
The 2x economy also helps. Trust me on that.
: So its IMO more a problem of the players who like to play Toy-Races instead of
: an unbalanced race wizard that makes CAs, JoaTs, etc in games more successful
: then SS in example.
So you *are* implying that those who prefer economic PRTs are superior. (Actually,
that people who like toy PRTs are inferior, which is much the same thing.)
: Nethertheless i think the race wizard could need some improvements.
Well then, come on over and join the Whiner camp! Eat, drink and be merry!
Just don't sit in that booth over there, it's actually full of SS afficionadoes...
: Just my opinions.
: Thomas
Mine too,
Martinl
Leonard Dickens
Jason Cawley wrote:
>Here's my challenge - give me any non-CA, non-JOAT race design that you
>think can't be improved by being turned into a CA.
6% triimmune.
Oh, you meant a *viable* race?
Well -- 6% triimmune HE? ;)
-Leonard
Randy L King
rb...@aol.com (RBKOZ) wrote:
>>Sjaak Zomer wrote:
>>The best way is to get the Jeffs to change the instant-terraforming.
>I will say it again. The best and easiest way of balancing the CA is to remove
>instant-terraforming as recommended above, and to make CA similar to the SD in
>that their specialty is utilized through their ships. CA would therefore be
>able to terriform by using terriformers only, just as SD requires minelayers to
>lay mines. CA already gets bonuses using their own terriformers. People upset
>about this method could call for increasing the bonuses, but I believe they are
>quite adequate.
This is what I would like to see. This is just an opinion which I've
expressed before.
Yes, the CA instaforming is imbalanced. The way you could make it a
little less imbalanced to still allow them to do it based on the
number of resources on the planet.
NOTE: All figures are based on this example only.
I colonize a 40%/88% (off by 24 clicks) with 50000 colonists (race has
1/1000 pop efficiency for simplicity of the math), giving me 50
resources right off the bat. If I charge say 25 resources per click
for a non-TT and 10 resources per click for a TT CA, this amounts to 2
clicks of terraforming that first year for a non-TT and 5 clicks of
terraforming that first year for a TT CA. It would take me almost 8
years to fully terraform the non-TT's planet and almost 3 years to
fully terraform the TT's planet. The resources are still available
for building factories/mines/whatever, but instaforming based on the
number of resources on the planet would slow the speed of terraforming
to a more reasonable amount.
Since I don't know the data structures at all, I couldn't tell you if
this would be feasible on a programmatic scale, but it's an idea.
So, here is yet another US$0.02 into the pot.
>B. Koz.
Randy
TheAncient on #Stars!
gry...@home.msen.com
Martin Leslie Leuschen
A modest proposal: (Will probably need to be tweaked to be balanced.)
A) In the Race Wizard, charge the CAs for some weighted average of their
rated hab, a hab 10 clicks wider, and their full potential hab.
Ex: 3x30 wide, centered, TT is charged for
a*C(3x30) + b*C(3x50) + c*C(3x90)
---------------------------------
a+b+c
For a 3x30, all 10 from the edge, these would be 3x30, 3x50, 3x70.
Where C(foo) is the cost of hab scheme foo, and a, b and c are
constants. I'd guess a=1, b=3, c=1 is ballpark. (I.E. Charge the CA for
the hab scheme he'll probably have in the 50's)
B) To reduce TT abuse, only allow CAs to instaform to the level of
their *standard* (non TT) terraforming tech.
Just random thoughts,
Martinl
Jason Cawley
Leonard Dickens wrote:
> 6% triimmune.
>
> Oh, you meant a *viable* race?
>
> Well -- 6% triimmune HE? ;)
I will turn the hab into each 40-60 wide and centered, add TT and cheap
bio - and the CA version of live everywhere will be better. With enough
1% shifts it'll amount to tri-immune in the end, too.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Ron Hiler
Martin Leslie Leuschen wrote:
[...]
>
> Well then, come on over and join the Whiner camp! Eat, drink and be merry!
> Just don't sit in that booth over there, it's actually full of SS afficionadoes...
HEY! Watch it with the SS cracks <g>
Sjaak Zomer
Hi Jason,
I have done some testing of this also. And I was using an mere 1/5 or
so CA race. When it reached TT-30 there where still some very very red
worlds. So I just let it going for another couple of centuries and
guess what...
ALL worlds were 100%, mostly 100% at the underlying value too...
It took the race approx 500 years to reach that. I would say, that
even final reds is something what an CA should consider to do,
especially if it runs out of space to dump his colonists.
Just my 0,01 euro.
Sjaak Zomer
Sjaak Zomer
On Thu, 02 Apr 1998 13:52:24 -0600, Jason Cawley
<jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> wrote:
<snip snip snip its only about Ca's....>
>
>> Why does it nethertheless seems to be that CAs and a few other PRTs like JoaTs
>> or ITs made in most cases the victory and other PRTs like SS in example not
>> very often? The answer is quite simple, look into the thread with Jasons
>> HP-SS, you find very often words in the posts like this, couldnt win with the
>> Design ofc, but it will be fun to play. And thats correct, _SUCH_ SS Designs
>> are unable to win, they are Toy-Races. Maybe its fun to play with these
>> Toy-Races as long as they have no competive counterpart, but if there is a
>> competive counterpart the Toy-Races are dead. Obvious. But that doesnt mean
>> that not a _WELL_ designed SS (or other PRT) could do similar competive like a
>> CA or a JoaT,
>
>Bullhockey. Any race you design that is neither JOAT nor CA, I can turn
>into a JOAT with few if any changes that will beat holy tar out of the
>original race. Why? Because the effects from being JOAT add several
>hundred advantage points. NAS being no liability, start at 3 box not
>being needed, +20 planet capacity, similar effects on space capacity
>ratio and pop growth, etc. Buying those same things in the wizard costs
>200-350 points. Those points spent on something else to improve the
>econ will always improve the race. Thus going from any non-JOAT design
>to a JOAT design will result in a bigger, badder, meaner race. More for
>some starting designs than for others, but always an improvement.
I do not agree entirely with Jason about a lot of things.
First what are the advantages which the JOAT's have.
1. Tech 3 in all fields without paying anything for it.
2. Free pen-scans on Scout, Destroyer, Frigate. Starting 60/30.
3. 20 extra pop on all worlds.
4. They can use the NAS-trait, but still get Pen-scans on the three
above mentioned hulls.
I would like to comment on all of those, and I will start with the
easiest one.
Point 1: Any race can have this. Just buying the "start at 3 box". It
costs them some racialpoints, but other races also got free tech.
Did you forget the SS which get 5 at Electronic (at Elec 6 they got
the Chameleon Scanner) the IT got tech 5 in construction/Pop. And so
on.
Point 2+4: The free scanners. Did you forget the inbuilt cloaks from
the SS, the inbuilt extra warspeed of the WM!?? Also the SS can also
take NAS without giving up all of their pen-scanners: the Chameleon
scanner will be still active.
But i do agree that having an very cheap pen-scan that early is
somewhat unbalancing. I would suggest that we got an 50/25 scanner at
tech 3. It should be somewhat more expensive and maybe heavier than
the normal ones, but this will do. Using this a race can choose to
research untill they got elec3 for speeding up finding their new
worlds. Don't forget that those first techs are fairly inexpensive.
Point 3: Yep, nice and it should stay this way. Because THIS is the
main difference between an JOAT and any other races.
All races have got their edge in some way. And some are even able to
sell it, or let it be used by other races. The CA can sell/loan their
OA giving them an VERY BIG ADVANTAGE with diplomacy. The IT can gate
other ships, and even act as cargo freighters. The SS can give away
98% cloaked ships, the WM can give away their DreadNoughts the SD can
give away their mines.....
And what has the JOAT to spare. Information!?? Have you ever tried to
share that, or have you ever tried to give it away. Think of the MM
involved on both side. Have you ever tried to trade the scans or an
scout to your neighbors. Scanning info can't be given around. (Maybe
something to add. Give scanning to ....).
The only advantage that really counts is their economic power. They
should be bigger than all other races, because they excel in NOTHING.
If the Jeffs decide to throw that away, they are actually throwing
away the JOAT's. The free pen-scan is nice, but it involves heavy MM
to do it right. The tech 3 at start is also nice, but it is only an
advantage for the first couple of turns.
>
>Now, if a straight HG-type SS race liable to get better econ and thus
>warfighting performance than a HP narrow tech-thief one? Sure. But it
>won't get near what a JOAT with the same settings plus all the extra
>points will get - it'll just get smashed by such a JOAT with
>approximately equal play. Even more so for a CA.
If the SS is as almost the same size as the JOAT (lets say SS= 100 and
JOAT=110) then the SS should use his PRT-advantage, strike when its
not expected. Bombing lowly defended worlds, ground-assault them.
Actually USE those cloaking like the JOAT use his economy.
Using the economic advantage is easier, I agree, but those extra
factories have to be built, you will need those Germ. So try to send
out an couple of highly cloaked vessel to mess with his shipping. Your
main advantage.
If you got an 1-1 fight you should be able to give an good fight.
Ofcourse the designs have to be good. An SS with expensive Electronics
isn't that smart. Why!?? Because it can take TOO long to get those
Ultra Stealth cloaks.
>Now, some *minor* edge in the wizard and/or econ things for races
>without the warfighting specials makes some sense. But econ is big;
>bigger than the race wizard takes into account in the loopholes for
>these sorts of races. Design knowledge and the like has absolutely
>nothing to do with it.
Correct, The total of those advantages isn't minor. But the advantage
of having 75% cloaked ships isn't minor also. I haven't even talked
about the IT. they can fight with an smaller economy because their
ships is there where they are needed. An Any/Any gate is very good.
It will take time to build them up, and it is their main advantage.
Which can be shared with all allies. Unlike the Joat-penscans....
I do think that with the introduction of an 50/25 scanner at elec 3.
The main problem of the JOAT's scanners will be gone, especially in
the beginning of the game.
Lets call it the "Butterfly Scanner" With costs of 5/0/10/25 res
weight 5. This way the non-NAS have easy access to an nice scanner
SOON.
The weight/costs will make you want to replace the scanner as soon as
you got elec 7, but meanwhile it will be nearly as good as the Joat'd
penscan. It is the PEN-SCAN range which is important afterall..
Just my 0,01 euro and hoping to have contributed something usefully to
this discussion.
Sjaak Zomer
Leonard Dickens
Jason Cawley wrote:
>>[A viable race that cannot be made better in CA form?]
>> 6% triimmune HE? ;)
>
>I will turn the hab into each 40-60 wide and centered,
>add TT and cheap bio - and the CA version of live everywhere
>will be better. With enough 1% shifts it'll amount to
>tri-immune in the end, too.
Seems to me if you keep either of the features of the race I specified,
namely, triimmune or 6%, my HE will, in fact, be superior to any CA.
Clearly, you are assuming you can change the hab. So, are you keeping
6% grow? If so, my race is still clearly better.
I agree that if you get to redesign your CA freely, you can certainly
design a better testbed race than any non-CA race I can design.
However, that seems obvious in any case. So, what were you really
asking when you wrote:
Here's my challenge - give me any non-CA, non-JOAT race design
that you think can't be improved by being turned into a CA.
?
-Leonard
James R. McClure Jr.
Peace Sjaak,
Sjaak Zomer wrote:
>
> On Thu, 02 Apr 1998 13:52:24 -0600, Jason Cawley
> <jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> I do not agree entirely with Jason about a lot of things.
> First what are the advantages which the JOAT's have.
> 1. Tech 3 in all fields without paying anything for it.
> 2. Free pen-scans on Scout, Destroyer, Frigate. Starting 60/30.
> 3. 20 extra pop on all worlds.
> 4. They can use the NAS-trait, but still get Pen-scans on the three
> above mentioned hulls.
>
> I would like to comment on all of those, and I will start with the
> easiest one.
> Point 1: Any race can have this. Just buying the "start at 3 box". It
> costs them some racialpoints, but other races also got free tech.
> Did you forget the SS which get 5 at Electronic (at Elec 6 they got
> the Chameleon Scanner) the IT got tech 5 in construction/Pop. And so
> on.
Not exactly. You have to choose "cost +75%" for each tech that you
want to start at three & you have to pay to check the "start at 3" box.
The most important thing about JOAT vs. other non-CA is starting as
JOAT gives you 25 points (plus another 95 for NAS).
> Point 2+4: The free scanners. Did you forget the inbuilt cloaks from
> the SS, the inbuilt extra warspeed of the WM!?? Also the SS can also
> take NAS without giving up all of their pen-scanners: the Chameleon
> scanner will be still active.
> But i do agree that having an very cheap pen-scan that early is
> somewhat unbalancing. I would suggest that we got an 50/25 scanner at
> tech 3. It should be somewhat more expensive and maybe heavier than
> the normal ones, but this will do. Using this a race can choose to
> research untill they got elec3 for speeding up finding their new
> worlds. Don't forget that those first techs are fairly inexpensive.
Not "very-cheap" pscan, FREE pscan on all their early (non-freigher)
ships. This is a HUGE advantage in the early stages of the game and
it cost JOAT _nothing_ (they actually get 120 points back [see above]).
WM & SS pay points up front to have those special abilities. JOAT
_gets_ points for its special ability. This is imbalanced.
> Point 3: Yep, nice and it should stay this way. Because THIS is the
> main difference between an JOAT and any other races.
>
> All races have got their edge in some way. And some are even able to
> sell it, or let it be used by other races. The CA can sell/loan their
> OA giving them an VERY BIG ADVANTAGE with diplomacy. The IT can gate
> other ships, and even act as cargo freighters. The SS can give away
> 98% cloaked ships, the WM can give away their DreadNoughts the SD can
> give away their mines.....
Other races _pay_ for their advantages (except CA & SD). JOAT is better
than free (120 pts better). IT is the most expensive PRT. SS isn't
cheap either.
> The only advantage that really counts is their economic power. They
> should be bigger than all other races, because they excel in NOTHING.
> If the Jeffs decide to throw that away, they are actually throwing
> away the JOAT's. The free pen-scan is nice, but it involves heavy MM
> to do it right. The tech 3 at start is also nice, but it is only an
> advantage for the first couple of turns.
The game is all about economic power. No matter how much special
ability you have, if your opponent is 20% bigger than you economically
(and the average JOAT will be much more than that, given their 120
starting points), you are going to lose. Their tech will be 20% more
advanced than yours and they'll have 20% more ships than you. Plus,
JOAT's pop grows faster than others (non-CA), so their ramp-up is
quicker.
Heavy MM is _not_ necessary to use the free pscan. Just fly by several
worlds and pick a new waypoint near several others. Quick, efficient,
and FREE. Too powerful for 25 (or 120) points.
> >Now, if a straight HG-type SS race liable to get better econ and thus
> >warfighting performance than a HP narrow tech-thief one? Sure. But it
> >won't get near what a JOAT with the same settings plus all the extra
> >points will get - it'll just get smashed by such a JOAT with
> >approximately equal play. Even more so for a CA.
> If the SS is as almost the same size as the JOAT (lets say SS= 100 and
> JOAT=110) then the SS should use his PRT-advantage, strike when its
> not expected. Bombing lowly defended worlds, ground-assault them.
> Actually USE those cloaking like the JOAT use his economy.
A SS isn't going to be w/i 10% of an "equal" JOAT. It will be down _at
least_ 20%, probably more, given that SS costs 28 pts and JOAT gives
25. Since JOAT is probably taking NAS, their scanners are actually
_more_ effective at spotting cloaked ships (not orbiting worlds), so
SS's main advantage is significantly reduced. Economically, SS can't
compete w/ JOAT. Game over, Mr. SS.
> >Now, some *minor* edge in the wizard and/or econ things for races
> >without the warfighting specials makes some sense. But econ is big;
> >bigger than the race wizard takes into account in the loopholes for
> >these sorts of races. Design knowledge and the like has absolutely
> >nothing to do with it.
> Correct, The total of those advantages isn't minor. But the advantage
> of having 75% cloaked ships isn't minor also. I haven't even talked
> about the IT. they can fight with an smaller economy because their
> ships is there where they are needed. An Any/Any gate is very good.
> It will take time to build them up, and it is their main advantage.
> Which can be shared with all allies. Unlike the Joat-penscans....
No, 75% cloak isn't minor; that's why you pay 28 pts for SS. JOAT cost
-25 pts for the sum of its many advantages. Way out of balance. IT
cost more than any other PRT and the ~/~ gate is a pipedream in most
games. JOAT is way too cheap and can easily be fixed by increasing
their starting cost to zero or some negative value.
Nil carborundum illigitimi,
James R. McClure Jr.
Sir Knight of Columbus
Indiana 9th Congressional District Candidate
Sjaak Zomer
On Fri, 03 Apr 1998 11:26:53 -0500, "James R. McClure Jr."
<jmcc...@kdp01.kdp-baptist.louisville.edu> wrote:
<rest snipped>
>The game is all about economic power. No matter how much special
>ability you have, if your opponent is 20% bigger than you economically
>(and the average JOAT will be much more than that, given their 120
>starting points), you are going to lose. Their tech will be 20% more
>advanced than yours and they'll have 20% more ships than you. Plus,
>JOAT's pop grows faster than others (non-CA), so their ramp-up is
>quicker.
</Sarcasms ON>
You are right.
Stars! is all about economic power, tactical and strategic playing
have NOTHING to do at all.
So next time we will play an game, we will compute the maximum number
of resources you can get and the game is finished. Why bother playing
at all, we KNOW the outcome.
<Sarcasms OFF/>
Sjaak Zomer
James R. McClure Jr.
Peace Sjaak,
Sjaak Zomer wrote:
>
> On Fri, 03 Apr 1998 11:26:53 -0500, "James R. McClure Jr."
> <jmcc...@kdp01.kdp-baptist.louisville.edu> wrote:
>
> <rest snipped>
>
> >The game is all about economic power. No matter how much special
> >ability you have, if your opponent is 20% bigger than you economically
> >(and the average JOAT will be much more than that, given their 120
> >starting points), you are going to lose. Their tech will be 20% more
> >advanced than yours and they'll have 20% more ships than you. Plus,
> >JOAT's pop grows faster than others (non-CA), so their ramp-up is
> >quicker.
>
> </Sarcasms ON>
</lost the argument mode on>
> You are right.
>
> Stars! is all about economic power, tactical and strategic playing
> have NOTHING to do at all.
>
> So next time we will play an game, we will compute the maximum number
> of resources you can get and the game is finished. Why bother playing
> at all, we KNOW the outcome.
>
> <Sarcasms OFF/>
</lost the argument mode off>
Thomas Pfister
In article <6g0q7l$7...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>,
jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net wrote:
>Thomas Pfister wrote:
>
>> IMO, you miss the point.
>
>
>> and you could make results no other PRTs could come even near. But testbeds
>> are not games. In games all PRT have the possibility to get instaforming as
>> long as CAs are in the game.
>Bullhockey.
Your new hobby by side stars! whatever it is? ;-)
> One, only allies of CAs do.
Sorry everyone can do. Game experience shows that all tradeable goes around,
CA-Player gives OAs to Player A, Player A gives some to Player B, Player B
some to Player C, at least all have enough.
> Two, OAs are not instaforming
>- they require some investment and don't raise the habs until later as a
> result of that, resulting in a smaller effect on acheived pop growth.
LOL, 30 OAs cost peanuts and thats pretty more then enough belongs to a TT-CA
to TF all his world instant in usual planets/player ratios say 35 planets per
player. Same true belongs traded OAs for NON-CAs. The OAs do their work
even if you colonize with 1000 colonists early on and do all the possible TF
before you get the Technology which makes the world green. In that turn you
have
only the upto 4 TFs to do from your new TL, so in the worsest case 2 OA-ships
will do instant in the turn you gain the new Tech ability make the world
green.
If you get rid of "Instaforming" as it is you add only additional MM into the
game
belongs CA, thats it.
Get a bit real ;-).
> Three, races in non-team games would have to assume they get a CA
> alliance to take advantage even of the OAs - because it is the busted
> race wizard costs for worked-around narrow hab that cause the
> imbalance. They'd have to design on the assumption they will get tons
> of OAs soon to game the wizard the way CAs can - and if they didn't
> they'd just be busted.
To design a race is always a bet. If you Design a 1/10 race belongs to a
game with 35 planets per player you bet that you nethertheless find enough
greens, if not ... If you play HP you bet that you find enough G, if you
play NAS you bet you find an Ally who gives you Pens and so on. If you play
a 1/12 TT NON-CA you bet that you have get enough time or get some OAs and if
_I_ do so _I_ would give this race some nice stuff to trade.
So what is your problem? I see none. I see only a bet and a challenge to
do well even if you lost the bet.
> All that is gaming the wizard and none of it is even decent race
> design. It's just a giant loophole. Nothing else.
It seems to me that all races who take not IFE, Weapon cheap and have not at
least in 2460 Arma-BBs are in _YOUR_ opinion not decent designed.
Others have other opinions, ofc. Only a sidestep ;-)
>> Each race anyway of it PRT has this way a fair chance to gain free
>> TF and therefore a chance to win.
>
>Bullhockey.
>
>> Why does it nethertheless seems to be that CAs and a few other PRTs like
JoaTs
>> or ITs made in most cases the victory and other PRTs like SS in example not
>> very often? The answer is quite simple, look into the thread with Jasons
>> HP-SS, you find very often words in the posts like this, couldnt win with
the
>> Design ofc, but it will be fun to play. And thats correct, _SUCH_ SS
Designs
>> are unable to win, they are Toy-Races. Maybe its fun to play with these
>> Toy-Races as long as they have no competive counterpart, but if there is a
>> competive counterpart the Toy-Races are dead. Obvious. But that doesnt mean
>> that not a _WELL_ designed SS (or other PRT) could do similar competive
like a
>> CA or a JoaT,
>
>Bullhockey. Any race you design that is neither JOAT nor CA, I can turn
>into a JOAT with few if any changes that will beat holy tar out of the
>original race.
I would always play a CA with these cargo gating from IT, hmmm, growth in
space would also be nice, or these Detonating Minefields, i like also
Dreadnoughts. Looking forward to your proposes belongs CAs which could do
this.
I hope that you see stars! not only under the economic point of view but as
a STRATEGY game with many things involved. If not, well, then you have obvious
something left to learn about stars! ;-)
>Why? Because the effects from being JOAT add several
>hundred advantage points. NAS being no liability, start at 3 box not
>being needed, +20 planet capacity, similar effects on space capacity
>ratio and pop growth, etc. Buying those same things in the wizard costs
>200-350 points. Those points spent on something else to improve the
>econ will always improve the race. Thus going from any non-JOAT design
>to a JOAT design will result in a bigger, badder, meaner race. More for
>some starting designs than for others, but always an improvement.
Great ;-) I mean to count the race abilities advantage points wise is a very
good idea to proof my view, even if i secretly think your counting of
Adv.Points
is a milkmaid counting, but lets play the game ;-)
Thankfully you have done the counting belongs JoaT, i will do belongs SS:
1) Research spying
2) Additional Ship Designs(Rogue+Stealthbomber)
3) Inbuild cloaking
4) Cloaked Freight
5) Advanced cloaking (Ultra, Transport, Shield, Armor)
6) Advanced scanners (Baron, Pocket, Chamaeleon)
7) Higher Minefield speed
and NO DISADVANTAGE at all.
Quite a lot advantages IMO, but lets take a closer look.
Research spying is IMO at minimum the same worth as to have 2 research
fields one "click" better, so i would say 150 adavantage points worth.
Additional Ship Designs, hmmm, these Designs are great, ISB cost 69 points,
i think its 40-50 Advantage points worth.
Inbuild cloaking, hard to calculate, but would say 30 points should
be okay.
Same IMO belongs to cloaked Freight.
To get these Advanced cloakings is a big deal, minimum 60 points worth
Same true belongs Advanced scanners
Higher Minefield speed sounds like a good trade, should be 30 points worth.
Lets count together, hmmm ~410 advantage points worth.
Really, SS has far to many advantages compared to JoaTs, the Jeffs should cut
something off. ;-)
> Also, the CA is even worse in this regard. Any race you make that isn't
> a CA I can make a CA that will be stronger than it, just by making it
> CA. Some JOATs being the only and minor expecption (those the CA will
> be about as strong, with faster ramp but more even later on). Why?
> Because the instaforming will automatically raise the acheived pop
> growth. And effectively wider hab. Take any reasonably playable race
> you design that is not JOAT or CA and narrow every hab range 15 clicks -
> look at the free points involved.
Lower the growth and you have also lots of points, give away Toys like ISB
and IFE and take worse LRT you gain lots of points too.
Hmmm, what is your point? ;-)
>It has nothing whatever to do with race design diligence. It's just
>unbalanced things in the wizard itself.
No, you miss the point. You couldnt get it all. A high growth, wide hab,
good economic, cheap Tech, good mines and tons of Toys altogether. If you
decide to take tons of Toys you must make something else worse, no?
Or do you think its balanced if a SS get in all areas the same power like
a CA/JoaT surplus all race abilities/Toys?
> Now, if a straight HG-type SS race liable to get better econ and thus
> warfighting performance than a HP narrow tech-thief one? Sure. But it
> won't get near what a JOAT with the same settings plus all the extra
> points will get - it'll just get smashed by such a JOAT with
> approximately equal play. Even more so for a CA.
YOU COULDNT GET IT ALL !!!
==========================
Your so called extra exist only in your fantasy, they are not real.
You couldnt count imaginary points from JoaTs/CAs you need to count
the ones from SS as well.
Also who says that a SS needs a good warfighting performance early on,
this is YOUR take of SS. Maybe its the wrong take ;-)
If your strategic take of stars! is to play Spoilerwise, try WM or Barrylike
CAs. Good things for it are IFE, Weapon cheap, small end-hab. But most players
play not spoilerlike they have another strategic take of stars! and have
therefore to design the race for these strategy. They read in the NG posts
from
you to take IFE, Weapon cheap and small hab and did not realize that it not
fit
with the strategy they play and to have 1 to 5 hab in end with peaceful
gameplay
and a territory of 35 planets is deadly, no?. And to try to Design
a Spoilerrace out of any PRT like you do, has the same result. If you and
other
would change their strategy belongs certain PRTs these PRTs would be more
succes-
ful IMO, that it is possible to play successful a WM or a SS have a few
players proved in games. Maybe their take of the PRTs was correct and
yours/others is not?
> Now, some *minor* edge in the wizard and/or econ things for races
> without the warfighting specials makes some sense. But econ is big;
> bigger than the race wizard takes into account in the loopholes for
> these sorts of races. Design knowledge and the like has absolutely
> nothing to do with it.
You overestimate Econ size total. These Barrylike CA-Monsters are really
papertigers against a WELLBALANCED race, _IF_ they are not able to steamroll
early on and most fail. And you could made a wellbalanced race with most PRTs,
maybe AR not, but i´m not sure.
>Here's my challenge - give me any non-CA, non-JOAT race design that you
>think can't be improved by being turned into a CA. After you do that
>and prove that the CA I throw back after is worse, you can lecture to
>your heart's content about whining. If you can't, you haven't a leg to
>stand on making that sort of comment.
Its quite easy to counterdesign ships or races, but maybe you take _MY_
challenge:
If you think that your Standard HG-CAs kind you post sometimes in the NG
is unbeatable vs a SS design of my own in a small universe say prove it
in a duel. We could endless discuss about balancing, prove nothing and will
only believe what we want to believe.
So take the challenge and prove it or leave it.
Your choice ;-)
ElCabalero
In article <6g36rq$86q$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, 101....@germany.net (Thomas
Pfister) writes:
>It seems to me that all races who take not IFE, Weapon cheap and have not at
>least in 2460 Arma-BBs are in _YOUR_ opinion not decent designed.
>Others have other opinions, ofc. Only a sidestep ;-)
IFE, arguable, but if any non-IT race fails to take it, they're sticking one
foot in a bucket of cement. Take anything but weapons cheap in a non-team
game, and you're committing suicide, slowly, no question about it. 2460
Arm-BB's? Well, if your neighbour has them in 2460, and you don't, what's
going to happen?
So yes, races that lack these things are either dead in the water or
considerably hobbled.
ElCabalero
In article <3524F385...@dc.SPAM.net>, Leonard Dickens
<leo...@dc.SPAM.net> writes:
>Seems to me if you keep either of the features of the race I specified,
>namely, triimmune or 6%, my HE will, in fact, be superior to any CA.
>Clearly, you are assuming you can change the hab. So, are you keeping
>6% grow? If so, my race is still clearly better.
And his point was that a TT CA is effectively tri-immune, with much higher
growth and econ performance, and without the half-sized planets.
No, the CA won't get every world to 100%. However, if it gets them all to
50%, they are as big for him as a 100% is for an HE (and if all are at least
50%, 5 in 6 or so will be 95-100). In real terms, no HE ever gets better than
a 75% world.
Take a 6% HE colonizing a 100% and a 20% CA colonizing a 50% world. In
theory, the only upside the HE gets is 2% higher PGR (effective PGR on a 50%
world would be 10% for the CA). In practice, the HE doesn't even get that, the
CA stuffs the planet with pop from a 100% world elsewhere.
ElCabalero
>I hope that you see stars! not only under the economic point of view but as
>a STRATEGY game with many things involved. If not, well, then you have
>obvious
>something left to learn about stars! ;-)
What *you* have still to learn about Stars! is that econ has turned out to
be of far more significance than the race designer is taking into account, and
JOAT's and CA's are getting enough econ advantage to more than overbalance the
tactical advantages of other PRT's. This isn't theory, this is what actual
games are showing.
Paul Arnold
In article <6fvp0n$2vr$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, 101....@germany.net (Thomas Pfister) writes:
|>
|> IMO, you miss the point. Sure CA's do in testbeds much better then other PRTs
|> and you could make results no other PRTs could come even near. But testbeds
|> are not games. In games all PRT have the possibility to get instaforming as
|> long as CAs are in the game. Most CAs are willing to trade CoHs or to help
|> with CoHs. I have usually in games 100+ CoHs traded away or helped with and
|> know that most other CAs did in these games too.
|> Each race anyway of it PRT has this way a fair chance to gain free
|> TF and therefore a chance to win.
I am not concerned about testbeds but rather real games. My experience and
that of many others that have spoken up in this thread and numerous other
threads in the past support the position of unbalance for CAs, Joats and to a
lesser extent ITs. Most CAs that I have played against are not willing to
trade away CoHs, realizing they have no control once they give up the CoHs.
Even if they are willing to trade this away, they are not given to enemies.
There is thus no balance in the availability of CoH terraforming. CAs only
get the instaforming, CoHs don't instaform, they terraform. The difference
being instant terraforming (happens as soon as colonized) versus a slower
process of putting ships in orbit and then terraforming the planet to the
values. The rate is dependent upon the number of ships involved.
I would suggest that you go back and read a few of the appends on the subject
of race design on DEJA News. Then see what happens with a well designed race
(or poorly designed one) when it is changed to CA or Joat. Run both races
through a testbed to see the results. The fact that you can do this and
still get all the special features of the CA and Joat should tell you
something. The results from the testbed will only serve to emphasize the
point.
I know you like to play CA and this seems to have blinded you to the reality
of what is going on here. It is possibly hard to accept that one's victories
with these PRTs are not as valid of an indicator of skill as players using the
non-economic PRTs.
[rest of append snipped since it has already been covered in great detail by
other comments]
Paul Arnold
Leonard Dickens
Thomas Pfister wrote:
>Game experience shows that all tradeable goes around,
>CA-Player gives OAs to Player A, Player A gives some to Player B,
>Player B some to Player C, at least all have enough.
The one game I played -- and won -- as a monster CA (though the term
wasn't really invented then; this was a year ago), I never gave away
OAs. I see no reason why a good player would, except possible to a very
well trusted ally, i.e. in a team game.
By retaining ownership of the OAs, you create a continuing, very good
reason for your ally to stay allied. A huge diplomatic advantage.
>[Jason:]
>>Two, OAs are not instaforming - they require some investment
>>and don't raise the habs until later as a result of that,
>>resulting in a smaller effect on acheived pop growth.
>
>LOL, 30 OAs cost peanuts and thats pretty more then enough
>belongs to a TT-CA to TF all his world instant in usual
>planets/player ratios say 35 planets per player. Same true
>belongs traded OAs for NON-CAs.
A number of responses spring to mind here; thus, in no particular order:
(1) I wouldn't LOL at Jason, regarding Stars knowledge.
(2) 30 OAs are by no means peanuts to a race in the part of the game
where it counts most, namely, the start. The point of the
deinstaforming idea is reduce the CA as a early game hyperrace, not to
take away its long term advantage.
(3) Even in the later game, 30 OAs are not going to adjust a large
empire. It takes time to move them where they are needed. 30 OAs will
be a start, though.
(4) OAs, unlike instaforming, can be ATTACKED by other races.
>If you get rid of "Instaforming" as it is you add only
>additional MM into the game belongs CA, thats it.
Minimal MM. Nothing like running a monster; not really a big deal.
Also, running OAs has interesting strategic import.
>If you think that your Standard HG-CAs kind you post sometimes
>in the NG is unbeatable vs a SS design of my own in a small
>universe say prove it in a duel. We could endless discuss about
>balancing, prove nothing and will only believe what we want to
>believe. So take the challenge and prove it or leave it.
I will take the offer, if Jason doesn't want it. Or maybe we could go
multiple games at once.
-Leonard
Paul Hager
101....@germany.net (Thomas Pfister) writes:
>In article <6g0q7l$7...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>,
> jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net wrote:
>>Thomas Pfister wrote:
[...]
>>Here's my challenge - give me any non-CA, non-JOAT race design that you
>>think can't be improved by being turned into a CA. After you do that
>>and prove that the CA I throw back after is worse, you can lecture to
>>your heart's content about whining. If you can't, you haven't a leg to
>>stand on making that sort of comment.
>Its quite easy to counterdesign ships or races, but maybe you take _MY_
>challenge:
>If you think that your Standard HG-CAs kind you post sometimes in the NG
>is unbeatable vs a SS design of my own in a small universe say prove it
>in a duel. We could endless discuss about balancing, prove nothing and will
>only believe what we want to believe.
>So take the challenge and prove it or leave it.
>Your choice ;-)
>Thomas
Can I make a side bet? My money would be on Jason. I consider the 3
strongest races to be CA, JoAT, and maybe IT -- though IS may belong
in there at the IT level. I know that in the races I've designed,
I gets the fastest ramp up and best economies with CA or JoAT (JoAT
tops out higher). I think that with real attention to detail, IT
can keep up because you can get by with less expenditure for transport
by using gates but it is tough.
I think a one-on-one game would be the proof of the pudding. An
HG CA should beat any SS in one-on-one with equal play in my view.
Now a more interesting challenge would be an HG CA versus an HP
CA (my preference).
--
paul hager hag...@cs.indiana.edu
"I would give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety's sake."
--from A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS by Robert Bolt
Jason Cawley
Leonard Dickens wrote:
> Seems to me if you keep either of the features of the race I specified,
> namely, triimmune or 6%, my HE will, in fact, be superior to any CA.
> Clearly, you are assuming you can change the hab. So, are you keeping
> 6% grow?
No. I can afford more. That is indeed the point - narrow hab in the
wizard makes pop growth cheap; for CAs, the hab isn't really narrow but
the pop growth is still cheap.
> I agree that if you get to redesign your CA freely, you can certainly
> design a better testbed race than any non-CA race I can design.
I'm not talking about testbeds, I am talking about real game power. And
yes, I mean with free redesign. Any advantage you give to any other
race can be largely matched via the points available to CAs, with more
left over besides. If you try to be better at minerals, I can make a CA
better and with other things better too. Tech, same way. Space
capacity ratio/long run resources, same. Ramp up speed - same. Good
LRTs - same. You can get some minor PRT related special abilities (like
an SS more *efficient* at tech, though not much better with the econ
size differences included); none that will weigh as much as what you
give up.
> However, that seems obvious in any case.
Tell it to Thomas. He says people who design non-CA, non-JOAT races
(and throws in ITs, IMHO incorrectly so) are making toy races because
they are poor or uncompetitive race designers. I say CAs are better
because the wizard isn't close to balanced. While he agrees the wizard
needs changes, he says that is whining, and if the other races are
designed to win rather than to be "neato" or "fun to play" then they'd
be just as good. Which is patently false. Hence my challenge, to prove
the point - any edge you try to get with another race type can be
matched or bettered (or close to it while being vastly better in other
areas) via a CA race designed to be good at whatever the other race type
is good at, plus.
To be clear about my challenge - I mean any changes allowed to the CA
designer (me :-) You (or anyone) makes any non-CA, non-JOAT aiming at
whatever sort of competitive advanatge - not "for fun", but to win.
I'll make a CA that can do the same things more or less and outshines
the proposed race in other areas, vastly so.
In the case of your tri-immune idea, your race had the advantages - live
everywhere; high hab values for decent pop growth achieved; high "space
capacity ratio" from using all planets; good minerals from planetary
mining of all worlds; presumably can afford decent tech if that is
desired as well. For the weaknesses - no gates, 1/2 sized planets,
pretty low maximum pop growth rate (12%). For those weaknesses (not the
gate one of course) a CA can get those strengths, with more besides.
If you accept that is possible (even obvious) then the conclusion
follows - CA races are stronger than others because of inherent wizard
balance issues, not because of race designers' proclivities.
You know, it just is sort of striking to me. I found the CA advantages
long ago, and since then (after a few testbeds, and with some exceptions
for team games where each team was only allowed one CA, etc) I have
refrained from playing them. Thomas seems to have found the same things
and talks as though it is some great competitive virtue to play the CAs
(or JOATs or ITs I guess in his case, based on his comments at any
rate), while calling others who have noticed the balance issue whiners.
I'm impressed by the difference in the apparent reactions.
Thomas is IMHO a knowledgable and helpful stars player. How he can
convince himself of his stated opinion on this subject is - well, beyond
me.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Jason Cawley
Sjaak Zomer wrote:
> First what are the advantages which the JOAT's have.
> 1. Tech 3 in all fields without paying anything for it.
60 points for other races, unless they can do without for some reason.
Some can; easier in some starts than others, etc. But "60 advantage
point cash value" :-)
> 2. Free pen-scans on Scout, Destroyer, Frigate. Starting 60/30.
Useful but not the biggie here.
> 3. 20 extra pop on all worlds.
Very useful. For pop growth per breeder, like the difference between
16% pop and 19% pop. That's a flock of points worth of better pop
growth on the worlds most of the pop growth comes from. On the capacity
side, like +2-5 mines operated and +2-8 factories operated for typical
settings. Also get more resources/capacity from the pop too. All told,
buying the same things in the wizard could cost another race 300-400
points easy (always worth at least 150 or so, often the higher figures).
> 4. They can use the NAS-trait, but still get Pen-scans on the three
> above mentioned hulls.
And unlike SS, get the full 107 points for it. In return for which they
get *better* scanning than just about every race.
Add those up and you are talking 260-567 extra advantage points. +25
starting for being JOAT. +285/+592. A swing of oh only about 400-700
points vs. the most expensive PRTs.
Now, maybe you see lots of ways to get things from the other PRTs that
are worth more than 400-700 points. Personally, I know where to spend
those 400-700 points and I do not expect a race without them to be equal
to one with them. Now, JOATs *ought* to be better pointwise - that
makes them flexible and gives them some edge for not having other huge
abilities. But 400-700 is way into overkill...
> Point 1: Any race can have this. Just buying the "start at 3 box".
Any race can indeed buy the JOATs advantages. But for ~300-700 points,
which they must take from somewhere - pop efficiency, factories, tech,
LRTs, hab, growth.
It
> costs them some racialpoints, but other races also got free tech.
> Did you forget the SS which get 5 at Electronic
Of course not. The point is "points". Elec 5 starting doesn't give you
ships to move pop, or 3 expensive bio levels for early terraforming, or
always starting with fuelmizers, or having the option to *start* with 40
LY penscan and fuelmizer privateers and spacedocks. Some but not all of
those things other races can get - like ITs (which costs the most for
the PRT, so down on points anyway you slice it) or by spending points.
> Point 2+4: The free scanners. Did you forget the inbuilt cloaks from
> the SS, the inbuilt extra warspeed of the WM!??
Why do you think I am forgetful or something? Don't be daft :-) But
built in cloaks don't pay you 107 advantage points in the race wizard
for taking no weakness.
Try this experiment, OK? Take any race you like, non-CA, non-JOAT that
you have actually played in a real stars game vs. humans. OK? It must
have - start at 3 box and no NAS (or be SS with NAS - that's fine too).
OK? Pull up that race in the wizard, unclick the start at 3 box, add
NAS. Then go to the econ screen. Reduce the factories and mines
operated by 1/6th. Go to the hab and growth screen. Reduce the pop
growth just 1% (often 3% is more like it, but we are being conservative
here).
OK? Look at those points. Try several experiments - 1, put 'em *all*
in hab. Two, put 'em all in cheaper tech. 3, all raising pop growth.
4. all raising factories operated.
What was the change in hab ratios? How many more resources will the
JOAT get out of the same space controlled? How much cheaper was the
tech overall? How high could you get the pop growth without giving up
anything else econ-wise? How much larger would your max planet size by
if you spent it all on factories operated?
Now, you get to choose - the size of those advantages, vs. the previous
PRT's special abilities.
See now what I am talking about? The JOAT ought to be better, sure,
because it doesn't get the other races' specials. But *that much
better*? In your conscience, now ;-)
Also the SS can also
> take NAS without giving up all of their pen-scanners: the Chameleon
> scanner will be still active.
But they don't get at good scanning as a JOAT and NAS gives them 45
points or less vs. 107 for the JOAT. The points are the thing...
Information!?? Have you ever tried to
> share that, or have you ever tried to give it away.
Sure, I have done so often and successfully. I still play JOATs, even
though I think they are too strong - if others can play CAs in that
particular game. If CAs are banned, I won't play a JOAT either.
> Scanning info can't be given around.
Sure it can. More work, yes. Can't be used to direct intercepts, true
- but the big use is early, for planet info, and later info on people's
overall pop thus econ size in no public scores games.
> The only advantage that really counts is their economic power. They
> should be bigger than all other races, because they excel in NOTHING.
Agreed. And a 200 point difference or so in advantage points investable
in econ settings, other things being about equal, would be fine. Even
300 perhaps. But 400-700 is just too much...
> If the SS is as almost the same size as the JOAT (lets say SS= 100 and
> JOAT=110)
He won't be. Take the SS race, change the PRT, make the changes above.
Tell me those extra points are only going to get you +10% econ. There
is no way. It is tons more than that, done right...
I haven't even talked
> about the IT. they can fight with an smaller economy because their
> ships is there where they are needed.
I agree the IT specials are some of the most powerful in stars. But the
point and econ difference is huge, fighting a good JOAT. I have killed
enough of those "smaller, but can fight" ITs with JOATs to know that no,
they can't really fight as well when smaller by using their racial
specials. They can win if those specials are coupled to *diplomacy*
things; and the IT specials are good at diplomacy too. But alone, not
enough.
Now, maybe I wasn't fighting the best ITs or the most experienced
players of them. But blaster cruisers, then disruptor cruisers and a
dozen doom BBs are not going to hold off a JOAT with 100 arm BBs with
tech 18-24-12-16-19-x, escorted by over 500 disruptor cruisers, just by
gating around to where they are needed. Not even with ultrastations and
minefields (which won't last long against those sort of numbers). That
is a real set-piece match-up from a real game in huge, with the JOAT
attack started in the 70's. Tzup is no babe in the woods, either. In
point of fact, his real chances turned on diplomacy with another JOAT
race played by Scott Phelps - if Scott had turned, would have been very
different. But he needed him because Scott had the early econ muscle,
being JOAT, and Tzup didn't being IT. When he didn't get the stab, he
was done for.
> I do think that with the introduction of an 50/25 scanner at elec 3...
I don't. The scanning is nice, but not unbalancing compared to cloaks
or battlespeed and good hulls, etc. The full points for NAS are a part
of the problem, though. Advantage points are the real issue, not the
JOAT scanning ability. The extra advantage points available without
weaknesses just for being JOAT are too numerous - that is the real
issue, IMO. And the CA edge is IMHO actually larger than the JOAT edge
- which is saying something.
Anyway, useful discussion.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Paul Arnold
In article <6g36rq$86q$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, 101....@germany.net (Thomas Pfister) writes:
|>
|> Sorry everyone can do. Game experience shows that all tradeable goes around,
|> CA-Player gives OAs to Player A, Player A gives some to Player B, Player B
|> some to Player C, at least all have enough.
I don't know where you are playing games but I have never ever seen OAs passed
around from player to player. They are too valuable to give away especially
if you can not replace the ones you give away. Why would a CA keep giving OAs
to a player who was passing them around to all? This statement like a lot you
make are totally without any support in my experience with the game and I have
been playing since version 1.1. Making wild upsupported claims that has no
basis in what people experience in real games is rather silly and not helpful.
|> To design a race is always a bet. If you Design a 1/10 race belongs to a
|> game with 35 planets per player you bet that you nethertheless find enough
|> greens, if not ... If you play HP you bet that you find enough G, if you
|> play NAS you bet you find an Ally who gives you Pens and so on. If you play
|> a 1/12 TT NON-CA you bet that you have get enough time or get some OAs and if
|> _I_ do so _I_ would give this race some nice stuff to trade.
|> So what is your problem? I see none. I see only a bet and a challenge to
|> do well even if you lost the bet.
The problem is that CA players or any others who know what they are doing
don't give away major advantages for marginal gains. I can think of very few
items I might be willing to trade if I was a CA and even then the numbers
would be VERY small in terms of OAs given away. Now if you are finding CA
players willing to trade OAs very willingly, then I think these are probably
newbie players who don't know what they are doing.
|> It seems to me that all races who take not IFE, Weapon cheap and have not at
|> least in 2460 Arma-BBs are in _YOUR_ opinion not decent designed.
|> Others have other opinions, ofc. Only a sidestep ;-)
Well it all depends upon your objective. The subject of this thread is having
races that are competitive and thus able to win a game on their own abilities
to be competitive requires certain capabilities. At the top of the list is
economy.
|> I would always play a CA with these cargo gating from IT, hmmm, growth in
|> space would also be nice, or these Detonating Minefields, i like also
|> Dreadnoughts. Looking forward to your proposes belongs CAs which could do
|> this.
|> I hope that you see stars! not only under the economic point of view but as
|> a STRATEGY game with many things involved. If not, well, then you have obvious
|> something left to learn about stars! ;-)
This statement, aside from its arrogance, shows a disturbing lack of
understanding on what are the main factors in the performance of a race
design. Econ = Resources = Better Technology = Superior Power. Quoting a
bunch of PRT capabilities that have small to no impact on econ power ignores
the main point.
I'm leaving in Jason's comments below for the next point.
|> >Why? Because the effects from being JOAT add several
|> >hundred advantage points. NAS being no liability, start at 3 box not
|> >being needed, +20 planet capacity, similar effects on space capacity
|> >ratio and pop growth, etc. Buying those same things in the wizard costs
|> >200-350 points. Those points spent on something else to improve the
|> >econ will always improve the race. Thus going from any non-JOAT design
|> >to a JOAT design will result in a bigger, badder, meaner race. More for
|> >some starting designs than for others, but always an improvement.
|>
|> Great ;-) I mean to count the race abilities advantage points wise is a very
|> good idea to proof my view, even if i secretly think your counting of
|> Adv.Points
|> is a milkmaid counting, but lets play the game ;-)
|>
|> Thankfully you have done the counting belongs JoaT, i will do belongs SS:
|>
|> 1) Research spying
|> 2) Additional Ship Designs(Rogue+Stealthbomber)
|> 3) Inbuild cloaking
|> 4) Cloaked Freight
|> 5) Advanced cloaking (Ultra, Transport, Shield, Armor)
|> 6) Advanced scanners (Baron, Pocket, Chamaeleon)
|> 7) Higher Minefield speed
WRONG, point 2 through 7 do NOTHING to contribute to the economy. The Joat
points were all based upon improved economy which is much more important.
Remember: Economy = Resources = Better Technology = Superior Power
|> and NO DISADVANTAGE at all.
|> Quite a lot advantages IMO, but lets take a closer look.
WRONG, big disadvantage in economy and so you will experience a horrible death as
the massed Joat scouts find and armed ships destroy your ultra cloaked ships
rather easily. You won't have a prayer because you will be behind in the
economy it takes to put up a fight even if you manage to equalize the tech levels.
[snipped bogus SS points not related to econ performance]
|> Lower the growth and you have also lots of points, give away Toys like ISB
|> and IFE and take worse LRT you gain lots of points too.
|> Hmmm, what is your point? ;-)
We are talking about taking a race and improving it simply by making it a CA or
Joat. If you start to remove LRTs and lower PGW then the whole point of the
exercise is defeated. The POINT is to show the benefit from going from a SS
or any other PRT to a CA or Joat. Comments like this on your part seem to be
intentionally trying to misrepresent the facts. WHAT IS YOUR POINT???
|> No, you miss the point. You couldnt get it all. A high growth, wide hab,
|> good economic, cheap Tech, good mines and tons of Toys altogether. If you
|> decide to take tons of Toys you must make something else worse, no?
|> Or do you think its balanced if a SS get in all areas the same power like
|> a CA/JoaT surplus all race abilities/Toys?
We are trying to compare apples to apples here not apples to kangaroos as your
statements would have us do. I mean if you are not willing to even follow an
orderly process for looking at what you are trying to analyze, well I guess
that might in large measure provide the answer why your logic is so broken.
|> Your so called extra exist only in your fantasy, they are not real.
|> You couldnt count imaginary points from JoaTs/CAs you need to count
|> the ones from SS as well.
As stated above you are not counting economic performance. I think it is you
who is living the fantasy. Your misconceptions of what is important in
the winning of a game together with an unwillingness to look at perfectly
valid data based on many years experience from a number of players is the
other problem.
|> You overestimate Econ size total. These Barrylike CA-Monsters are really
|> papertigers against a WELLBALANCED race, _IF_ they are not able to steamroll
|> early on and most fail. And you could made a wellbalanced race with most PRTs,
|> maybe AR not, but i'm not sure.
|>
|> Its quite easy to counterdesign ships or races, but maybe you take _MY_
|> challenge:
|>
|> If you think that your Standard HG-CAs kind you post sometimes in the NG
|> is unbeatable vs a SS design of my own in a small universe say prove it
|> in a duel. We could endless discuss about balancing, prove nothing and will
|> only believe what we want to believe.
|> So take the challenge and prove it or leave it.
|> Your choice ;-)
Well, I am willing to take your challenge. I'm willing to play CA or Joat
against you SS. We can get a third party to host so we don't have to worry
about any funny business and they lets have a go. You tell me which race I
should play. I'm also willing to host the game if you would rather play
someone else.
Paul Arnold
Jason Cawley
Paul Arnold wrote:
Pardon, just wanted to respond to some things Thomas said that I didn't
see except quoted in your piece, for some reason -
> |> If you think that your Standard HG-CAs kind you post sometimes in the NG
> |> is unbeatable
I do not think any stars race is unbeatable, because stars being a
multiplayer game the single biggest factor in real games is diplomacy,
not race design.
vs a SS design of my own in a small universe say prove it
> |> in a duel.
As though one on one isn't the best possible situation for an SS race,
and completely unlike most real game situations. Least dilution of
spying from weaker races, no tech trading to reduce the importance of
tech to it's real game levels, no diplomatic advantages to the CA where
it would get them in a real game. And small to reduce the time-scale
and resources-scale of the CA advantages. If you think any such "test"
says anything about the real strength the races will show in a real
multiplayer game - well, I know perfectly well you know better than
that. So stop pulling legs and give us a race that can't be made better
be being made a CA. Or admit that the wizard is unbalanced and favors
CAs. Simple.
We could endless discuss about balancing, prove nothing and will
> |> only believe what we want to believe.
Speak for yourself. I for one believe very many things I don't want to
believe because I know they happen to be true. As for "proving", your
approach wouldn't prove anything about the point in dispute either, as
you well know.
> |> So take the challenge and prove it or leave it.
> |> Your choice ;-)
I have no desire to play stars with you, Thomas - I do not enjoy being
falsely called a whiner, and I play stars for fun. You have left my
challenge unanswered, and I believe the reason for that is quite clear.
It is because you know that on the point in dispute, I am right not
whining - you have yourself said on previous occasions that the wizard
needs changes. This other thing of yours is simply a matter of your
ego, which is beneath my notice.
Respectfully,
Jason Cawley
Thomas Pfister
In article <6g3m77$m...@news.sei.cmu.edu>,
p...@sei.cmu.edu (Paul Arnold) wrote:
>
>
> In article <6g36rq$86q$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, 101....@germany.net (Thomas
Pfister) writes:
> |>
> |> Sorry everyone can do. Game experience shows that all tradeable goes
around,
> |> CA-Player gives OAs to Player A, Player A gives some to Player B, Player
B
> |> some to Player C, at least all have enough.
>
> I don't know where you are playing games but I have never ever seen OAs
passed
> around from player to player. They are too valuable to give away especially
> if you can not replace the ones you give away. Why would a CA keep giving
OAs
> to a player who was passing them around to all? This statement like a lot
you
> make are totally without any support in my experience with the game and I
have
> been playing since version 1.1. Making wild upsupported claims that has no
> basis in what people experience in real games is rather silly and not
helpful.
Reclaimation in example, Expert-game, hosted by Jonathan Sebast, 11 Players,
in example Barry Kearns(has dropped some turns ago now played by Damon
Domjan), Teak, Robert Ashcroft, Gene Russell, and so on. From my knowledge all
players have either OAs or has got help from OAs. I have begun to trade OAs
very early on, say turn 35 or so w/o Acc. BBS against SD-Minelayers. I am very
generous in trading i have even traded away around 10K germanium i could use
very well to build own factories in that time against some additional
Minelayers. So what is the problem with this? I have some turns ago scrapped
my remaining 68 CoHs because i found really no friendly world left to TF and
i´m with most other players friendly.
In the other game i have 39 CoHs left i move around to help TF new
Colonized/Conquered worlds, i have lost til yet 40-50 or so, if i loose more
i will build a batch new. Again, what is the problem with it?
I mean OAs are not more vulnerable as transport ships to colonize a world,
arent they? So what is the problem?
> |> To design a race is always a bet. If you Design a 1/10 race belongs to a
> |> game with 35 planets per player you bet that you nethertheless find
enough
> |> greens, if not ... If you play HP you bet that you find enough G, if you
> |> play NAS you bet you find an Ally who gives you Pens and so on. If you
play
> |> a 1/12 TT NON-CA you bet that you have get enough time or get some OAs
and if
> |> _I_ do so _I_ would give this race some nice stuff to trade.
> |> So what is your problem? I see none. I see only a bet and a challenge to
> |> do well even if you lost the bet.
>
> The problem is that CA players or any others who know what they are doing
> don't give away major advantages for marginal gains. I can think of very
few
> items I might be willing to trade if I was a CA and even then the numbers
> would be VERY small in terms of OAs given away. Now if you are finding CA
> players willing to trade OAs very willingly, then I think these are probably
> newbie players who don't know what they are doing.
I wouldnt qualify me as Newbie nor the other CAs in Reclaimation or Master of
Universe, together 5, who traded a lot too. I´m not 100% sure if Barry traded
OAs, but at least his Delphin-Galleons were traded around(a lot of player has
NAS).
I could think about a lot i´m willing to trade vs. OAs, SD-Minelayer,
Pen-Ships(if NAS), IS-Minelayers, Tachyon-ships, Rogues, Stealth-Bomber,
Technology and others. Maybe you might say that Tachyon ships and others
are only tradeable relative late in the game, true, but _I_ trade not ship
by ship, TL by TL, _I_ trade ALL by ALL so its not important for me to get
the Tachyons 40 turns later then i give OAs.
> |> It seems to me that all races who take not IFE, Weapon cheap and have not
at
> |> least in 2460 Arma-BBs are in _YOUR_ opinion not decent designed.
> |> Others have other opinions, ofc. Only a sidestep ;-)
>
> Well it all depends upon your objective. The subject of this thread is
having
> races that are competitive and thus able to win a game on their own
abilities
> to be competitive requires certain capabilities. At the top of the list is
> economy.
My CAs has always not IFE and never Arma-BBs before 2480 or so, only my
factoryless CA have Weapon cheap, but factorybased W expansive and i had
really no problem to live with it. I had even no problems to get rid of the
one of Barrys Arma-BB fleet w/o any losses, so that the other Arma-BB Fleet
never tried to attack me. Stars! is a strategy
game, the goal is to have the Fleet at the right time with the right
numbers/designs at the right place to win the Battles who win the war who win
the game and not to gain 500K Resources in 2420. Sure, a better economy is
advantageous against
a worser. But let me decide between a race with half the economy, but more
minerals, a lot toys and say 20 more "important" Tech Levels overall, i know
which race i have to take. Maybe you not.
> |> I would always play a CA with these cargo gating from IT, hmmm, growth in
> |> space would also be nice, or these Detonating Minefields, i like also
> |> Dreadnoughts. Looking forward to your proposes belongs CAs which could do
> |> this.
> |> I hope that you see stars! not only under the economic point of view but
as
> |> a STRATEGY game with many things involved. If not, well, then you have
obvious
> |> something left to learn about stars! ;-)
>
> This statement, aside from its arrogance, shows a disturbing lack of
> understanding on what are the main factors in the performance of a race
> design. Econ = Resources = Better Technology = Superior Power. Quoting a
> bunch of PRT capabilities that have small to no impact on econ power ignores
> the main point.
_YOU_ show the lack of understanding. _ALL_ has an impact to economy or more
true to Empires power.
It is wareconomy. You could build in example with the SS-Toys a full cloaked
Minelayer for offensive purposes much earlier and much cheaper and could
impact therefore other players with these Minelayers more effective then any
other PRT, maybe SD byside. The higher safe Minespeed reduces your losses and
increase the amount of ships the other need to counter. Nethertheless the
impact against the player because of these Minefields is bigger as the impact
of NON-SS Minefields. Result, the NON-SS need to spend a lot Resources and
minerals into Defensive purposes ant cut down this way his economy and the
amount of ships for offensive purposes. OTOH the SS-Player could save alot
Resources+Minerals because of cheaper and less losses, saved to spend into
economy and for offensive purposes. This is quite simple.
I give you an historic example. Doenitz decide in Summer 43 to continue the
Subwar in North Atlantic even knowing that his subs get slaughtered. Why?
Because these old design subs already exist or are at least halfbuilded, so
the amount of Material+Personal,etc. to continue the subwar was low, but OTOH
the Anglos needs thousands of airplanes and ships and hundredthousands of man
as crew and for other jobs to slaughter the subs to defend the transports. The
amount for the Anglos was this way very high and would be used elsewhere for
offensive purposes. So a good deal from Doenitz point of view. Quite simple,
War esonomy ;-).
BTW, belongs arrogance, how nice would _YOU_ think if _YOU_ play CA/JoaT or
whatsoever win the game and the SS loosers claim you have won only because of
the advantageous PRT, would you not say that these SS-Guys are lousy loosers?
You and some other have no respect belongs JoaT/CA-Players why should i be
respectful belongs you?
You miss the point, see above.
> |> and NO DISADVANTAGE at all.
> |> Quite a lot advantages IMO, but lets take a closer look.
>
> WRONG, big disadvantage in economy and so you will experience a horrible
death as
> the massed Joat scouts find and armed ships destroy your ultra cloaked ships
> rather easily. You won't have a prayer because you will be behind in the
> economy it takes to put up a fight even if you manage to equalize the tech
levels.
Come on, SS start with El 5 and nead only 1 TL to gain their own Pens. With El
cheap quite easy to have similar Scan abilities as JoaTs early on. I play my
CA SS-like to say so, means i cloak a lot and need to pay a lot
mineral-resourcewise to do so. I know how successful cloaked ships are even in
endgame. Thats only a question of right operational planing, IMO.
> [snipped bogus SS points not related to econ performance]
>
> |> Lower the growth and you have also lots of points, give away Toys like
ISB
> |> and IFE and take worse LRT you gain lots of points too.
> |> Hmmm, what is your point? ;-)
>
> We are talking about taking a race and improving it simply by making it a CA
or
> Joat. If you start to remove LRTs and lower PGW then the whole point of the
> exercise is defeated. The POINT is to show the benefit from going from a SS
> or any other PRT to a CA or Joat. Comments like this on your part seem to
be
> intentionally trying to misrepresent the facts. WHAT IS YOUR POINT???
No _YOU_ misrespresent the facts. _YOU_ say lets only look at the economy and
let all other byside. I mean its not very clever to say that a JoaT has a
better economy as the JoaT is made to have a better economy. The SS is made to
be in other areas better. And if you say that the SS PRT is disavantageous
versus a JoaT or CA _YOU_ need to proof that one PRT in its _WHOLE_ is better
then an other, but you fail. You state only again and again that one or
another PRT could have a better economy then others. True but pointless.
> |> No, you miss the point. You couldnt get it all. A high growth, wide hab,
> |> good economic, cheap Tech, good mines and tons of Toys altogether. If you
> |> decide to take tons of Toys you must make something else worse, no?
> |> Or do you think its balanced if a SS get in all areas the same power like
> |> a CA/JoaT surplus all race abilities/Toys?
>
> We are trying to compare apples to apples here not apples to kangaroos as
your
> statements would have us do. I mean if you are not willing to even follow
an
> orderly process for looking at what you are trying to analyze, well I guess
> that might in large measure provide the answer why your logic is so broken.
_You_ compare apples with oranges. Say one guy buy a ferrari the other(you) a
truck and let both cost the same. Then you begin to whine that you get for
the same price a car with lower speeding up and high end speed. If i say, Hey
the truck has other useful abilities like transporting things in example, you
say, lets ignore it.
I mean to discuss something serious if one side asks permanently to ignore
valid facts is a bit pointless, isnt it?
> |> Your so called extra exist only in your fantasy, they are not real.
> |> You couldnt count imaginary points from JoaTs/CAs you need to count
> |> the ones from SS as well.
>
> As stated above you are not counting economic performance. I think it is
you
> who is living the fantasy. Your misconceptions of what is important in
> the winning of a game together with an unwillingness to look at perfectly
> valid data based on many years experience from a number of players is the
> other problem.
And i stated above, you are only counting what you want to count and you
ignore all what not fit with your point of view.
> |> You overestimate Econ size total. These Barrylike CA-Monsters are really
> |> papertigers against a WELLBALANCED race, _IF_ they are not able to
steamroll
> |> early on and most fail. And you could made a wellbalanced race with most
PRTs,
> |> maybe AR not, but i'm not sure.
> |>
> |> Its quite easy to counterdesign ships or races, but maybe you take _MY_
> |> challenge:
> |>
> |> If you think that your Standard HG-CAs kind you post sometimes in the NG
> |> is unbeatable vs a SS design of my own in a small universe say prove it
> |> in a duel. We could endless discuss about balancing, prove nothing and
will
> |> only believe what we want to believe.
> |> So take the challenge and prove it or leave it.
> |> Your choice ;-)
>
> Well, I am willing to take your challenge. I'm willing to play CA or Joat
> against you SS. We can get a third party to host so we don't have to worry
> about any funny business and they lets have a go. You tell me which race I
> should play. I'm also willing to host the game if you would rather play
> someone else.
If Jason not accept the challenge i´m willing to accept you or someone else as
long as its an advanced/expert player. You could make the decision then
between yours who will play. But remember I said one of Jasons standard
HG-CAs(Weapon cheap, all other expansive). I recommend also you do a small
testbed vs a techthief SS, 2 cheap,3 normal Tech say set to mineral Alchemy vs
the CA set to lowest research after factorybuilding and generate 200 turns. It
would me really wonder if you or someone else has really interest to play vs.
me after you see how good the SS do even without spending any Resources into
Research.
Thomas
> Paul Arnold
Jason Cawley
Thomas Pfister wrote:
> how nice would _YOU_ think if _YOU_ play CA/JoaT or
> whatsoever win the game
Gee, I for one do.
and the SS loosers claim you have won only because of
> the advantageous PRT, would you not say that these SS-Guys are lousy loosers?
No, the situation is rather different. Speaking for myself of course.
I play JOATs and kill ITs and SSs and PPs and I say those PRTs don't get
as much from the wizard as CAs and JOATs do. I say a fair part of my
edge in those games came just from the PRT I was playing. I've been on
the other side too, of course - winning with SD by using a warfighting
edge and a long-run strategy and diplomacy. The diplomacy is the
biggest thing in stars games, so any PRT can win. But that doesn't mean
their strengths or chances are equal. If any of players who used other
PRTs and got killed by my JOATs say the wizard isn't balanced, they are
just saying something true. I certainly wouldn't call them poor
losers. I freely grant being JOAT gave me an edge over non-CA, non-JOAT
races in such games.
Care to explain to me why I find that so easy and you seem not to?
But remember I said one of Jasons standard
> HG-CAs(Weapon cheap, all other expansive).
CAs, or JOATs, can be made decent at tech and better than most other
races in econ, both. I certainly never said that whatever non-JOAT,
non-CA race you design, the CA I can make it that will be better than it
in real games will have all expensive tech, now did I? In a game with 3
teams of 2 in small I might take a cheap weapons only, rest expensive
race meant to be an economic powerhouse solely. I'm playing one now, a
JOAT. In a 16 in huge no team game, I might take better tech, e.g.
weapons and con cheap, bio expensive, rest normal. Played one like that
recently, another JOAT. Expensive tech is not at all a requirement. I
certainly have never said so, either, so I don't understand your comment
at all.
And for the matter of that, where do you get the idea I have some
standard CA? I don't, you know. I don't even play them.
Respectfully,
Jason Cawley
Sjaak Zomer
On Fri, 03 Apr 1998 15:30:09 -0600, Jason Cawley
<jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> wrote:
Hi Everybody,
>Sjaak Zomer wrote:
>
>> First what are the advantages which the JOAT's have.
>> 1. Tech 3 in all fields without paying anything for it.
>
>60 points for other races, unless they can do without for some reason.
>Some can; easier in some starts than others, etc. But "60 advantage
>point cash value" :-)
You only get tech3 if you have that field at expensive, so if you want
to have all tech 3 than you need to take all fields level expensive.
This is not that smart. If you are doing this and you have to fight
against an well-designed JOAT you should loose. Nobody is able to keep
up with the techrace if they have to pay 75% extra for all fields.
Some will use IFE or NRSE so they will get extra tech too. So you
can't put that 60 points into your pocket. Moreover the first three
fields are the cheapest. If your race depends on have those tech3 box,
then you have done something wrong.
>
>> 2. Free pen-scans on Scout, Destroyer, Frigate. Starting 60/30.
>
>Useful but not the biggie here.
Even more usefully than the start at 3 box.
>> 3. 20 extra pop on all worlds.
>
>Very useful. For pop growth per breeder, like the difference between
>16% pop and 19% pop. That's a flock of points worth of better pop
>growth on the worlds most of the pop growth comes from. On the capacity
>side, like +2-5 mines operated and +2-8 factories operated for typical
>settings. Also get more resources/capacity from the pop too. All told,
>buying the same things in the wizard could cost another race 300-400
>points easy (always worth at least 150 or so, often the higher figures).
Yes. The MAIN advantage of the JOAT. BTW what would it cost to have
ALL ships move 0,5 faster!?? Wow a free Overthruster at every ship.
That can save me 40 resources for every ship I ever build. Or the
inbuilt cloak!?? Another 40-50 resources per ship. Yes, I am moving
all those PRT's toys into resources. How many should two/three turns
be worth (IT) in resources.
>
>> 4. They can use the NAS-trait, but still get Pen-scans on the three
>> above mentioned hulls.
>
>And unlike SS, get the full 107 points for it. In return for which they
>get *better* scanning than just about every race.
Yes, because they also need to sacrifice an entire ship-slot for using
those free pen-scans. All other races can move up to SFX for doing
those scanning, not like the JOAT. they have to stick with scouts etc.
That what I call an disadvantage. How many scouts do you see, doing
actual scouting!?? In the last game I played all players, expect the
JOAT's, moved up to those SFX's. (Ofcourse, I assume an Large/Huge
universe) So the JOAT's sacrifice an ship-slot and have to take those
ships with them, at every trip.
Also if you want to use your advantage, you will have to maintain the
number of scouts, even inside your own empire. Playing with NAS does
give some major troubles, mainly on planetary scanning base. The fact
that the JOAT"s do have the best way of dealing with this, doesn't
mean that they got the points for free.
Ehhh if a JOAT don't take NAS, he will loose those points.
>Now, maybe you see lots of ways to get things from the other PRTs that
>are worth more than 400-700 points. Personally, I know where to spend
>those 400-700 points and I do not expect a race without them to be equal
>to one with them. Now, JOATs *ought* to be better pointwise - that
>makes them flexible and gives them some edge for not having other huge
>abilities. But 400-700 is way into overkill...
The only way to spend those 400 virtual is spending in economy, I
stated VIRTUAL, because they are already spend. The JOAT's excell in
economy. While the WM excel in battles.
>
>> Point 1: Any race can have this. Just buying the "start at 3 box".
>
>Any race can indeed buy the JOATs advantages. But for ~300-700 points,
>which they must take from somewhere - pop efficiency, factories, tech,
>LRTs, hab, growth.
Again those 300-700 virtual points. You don't have those points, you
got the four advantages, strictly three because number four is a
choice.
>It
>> costs them some racialpoints, but other races also got free tech.
>> Did you forget the SS which get 5 at Electronic
>
>Of course not. The point is "points". Elec 5 starting doesn't give you
>ships to move pop, or 3 expensive bio levels for early terraforming, or
>always starting with fuelmizers, or having the option to *start* with 40
>LY penscan and fuelmizer privateers and spacedocks. Some but not all of
>those things other races can get - like ITs (which costs the most for
>the PRT, so down on points anyway you slice it) or by spending points.
No the point is not "points". Its racial abilities. The JOATS are not
the supreme race. They have an economic advantage, but that's the only
thing they got. They can't even trade it.
Assume that you want to talk with an CA, because you want to have some
OA. So the CA ask you "What do you offer." You can't offer him ships
which he can't build, because you don't have any special tools. You
can't give him scanning information, because then you CAN"T transfer
your scouts (writing info down is outside the game, so this don't
count). You can't give him resources. So the only thing you can give
him is tech, *IF* you have superior tech.
The last time I got into this situation, I have decided to do
something about this, so I colonized some absolute reds (reds that
never be green for me) so that I was able to trade. A planet you own
you can trade away, you have it. Giving permission to colonize worlds
in your region isn't the same.
An WM can trade his DN's, an IT can move your fleets, and HE can trade
his meta-morph-ships. And so on. But the JOAT has got NOTHING.
>> Point 2+4: The free scanners. Did you forget the inbuilt cloaks from
>> the SS, the inbuilt extra warspeed of the WM!??
>
>Why do you think I am forgetful or something? Don't be daft :-) But
>built in cloaks don't pay you 107 advantage points in the race wizard
>for taking no weakness.
I don't call extra MM no weakness.
>Now, you get to choose - the size of those advantages, vs. the previous
>PRT's special abilities.
>
>See now what I am talking about? The JOAT ought to be better, sure,
>because it doesn't get the other races' specials. But *that much
>better*? In your conscience, now ;-)
Yes. Because that even with an economy which is 20% bigger. You don't
have the tactical/strategical options like SS, IT, WM, SD and all the
other races have.
What good do 1000 extra resources do when your fleet can't FIND those
nasty SS-ships. What good do those bigger worlds do when they are
attacked by 10 Super Freighter full of the IS-orgy?? A fleet like this
can attack with 2000-3000 clans every turn (assuming 20% growth).
I have attacked with fleets consisting of over privateers full of
colonists. An IS would laugh at this.
<sniped some comments>
>> Scanning info can't be given around.
>
>Sure it can. More work, yes. Can't be used to direct intercepts, true
>- but the big use is early, for planet info, and later info on people's
>overall pop thus econ size in no public scores games.
Not inside the game. And we are talking about the GAME. Who cares if
the other side have written down the exact habitats from every planet
in the universe. I want to have this info available inside the game, I
want to have scanned it myself, then i know for sure how valid the
info is.
>> The only advantage that really counts is their economic power. They
>> should be bigger than all other races, because they excel in NOTHING.
>
>Agreed. And a 200 point difference or so in advantage points investable
>in econ settings, other things being about equal, would be fine. Even
>300 perhaps. But 400-700 is just too much...
If the advantage of the JOAT's is reduced to the level you want it,
you actually killed the JOAT. With an good competitor on the other
side you will NEED that bigger economy.
Like other players stated stars is an game of strategy, so an economic
advantage should be exploited, just like an tactical advantage.
Its look like that the economical side of the game has got too big,
while the warfighting side is nearly forgotten. As soon as players
tends to think "wow that other guy has got 21% more economy than me,
just lets give up, because he will win." then this game is going to
die, calculators take the place of tactical/strategical decisions.
Economy is an tool not everything. (Look who is saying this, I am the
type of guy that gets bored when the big fighting starts, and my
economy is finished <G>.) For ONE race economy is their PRT, so
anything that reduces that PRT into the scale you want it to be, is
actually destroying that PRT.
<snipped a bit>
>> I do think that with the introduction of an 50/25 scanner at elec 3...
>
>I don't. The scanning is nice, but not unbalancing compared to cloaks
>or battlespeed and good hulls, etc. The full points for NAS are a part
>of the problem, though. Advantage points are the real issue, not the
>JOAT scanning ability. The extra advantage points available without
>weaknesses just for being JOAT are too numerous - that is the real
>issue, IMO. And the CA edge is IMHO actually larger than the JOAT edge
>- which is saying something.
The introduction of an scanner 50/25 at elec 3 should help. Because
one of the main advantage of the JOAT is early scanning. Reducing this
somewhat gives other races the ability to find those good planets for
them easier. If the JOAT can't find those shiny planets he won't have
much success. Finding an colonizing soon is a big advantage. Having
access to an good world at turn 2415 is far better then finding it at
2425. A colonizer is cheap and easy made, but finding those worlds can
be very hard especially without pens.
I do think that an good designed CA can do without an pen-scan. Giving
them an even better advantage, and they get those full points also.
But we are discussing the JOAT.
Oh yes, I do love playing the JOAT's. Not because those 20% extra
worlds, but because those cheap and easy scouts, but those scouts are
always a lot of worlds, especially if you want to keep on eye on most
of the galaxy.
>
>Anyway, useful discussion.
Agreed.
Sjaak Zomer
Jason Cawley
Sjaak Zomer wrote:
> >Sjaak Zomer wrote:
Well, I will go through this. But I must say, I feel like this is some
"be argumentative" convention. Some of the points made into
disagreements here just seem really forced to me. Still, I think it is
useful to hash these things out.
> You only get tech3 if you have that field at expensive, so if you want
> to have all tech 3 than you need to take all fields level expensive.
Huh? Be logical here. The JOAT gets all levels 3, expensive or no.
The others get 3 if and only if they take the 3 box and make the field
expensive. The all starting at 3 the JOAT gets can't be *worse* than
the box, because he *doesn't* need them expensive.
Now, if all you are saying is "no one should ever take the box; it's a
lousy deal" you might make a case that it is worth less than 60. But
e.g. in tight games, Acc BBS, etc the starting tech is often useful, for
many races (*not* with all expensive of course).
> Yes. The MAIN advantage of the JOAT. BTW what would it cost to have
> ALL ships move 0,5 faster!?? Wow a free Overthruster at every ship.
> That can save me 40 resources
Overthrusters cost 20 resources, not 40. Extra speed is useful, but the
resources involved are tiny compared to econ size differences.
A resource track for a whole game, or just until the outcome is
overdetermined, can easily run 3-5 million resources, more in larger
games. 1/3rd differences in things that big are big differences - whole
fleets worth.
That is not why the speed is useful, though - its the extra design
options it opens up. Of course the other races get specials; the
question is whether the scale of the econ edge the econ races can get is
too large or not.
> Yes, because they also need to sacrifice an entire ship-slot for using
> those free pen-scans. All other races can move up to SFX for doing
> those scanning, not like the JOAT. they have to stick with scouts etc.
> That what I call an disadvantage. How many scouts do you see, doing
> actual scouting!??
What are you talking about? Frigate minelayers cover the whole interior
of a JOAT empire. Throwaway frigate minesweepers (or DDs if you prefer
those for sweeping) scan everything in creation continuously.
People tend to use minelayers and minesweepers. If not, they might try
them - they work very well.
> The only way to spend those 400 virtual is spending in economy, I
> stated VIRTUAL, because they are already spend.
Well, the box points are spent if you like. The others are not. I
meant my recommended experiment literally. You can play a JOAT with
5/6ths the factory settings, etc, etc, if you e.g. want to spend the
points on better tech or LRTs or mineral-getting ability. Where do I go
in the wizard to get back the 400+ points I spent for my WM bonuses if I
want to spend them on something else? Oh, right, the PRT screen,
switching to JOAT. Which is my point.
The JOAT's excell in
> economy. While the WM excel in battles.
1000 nubians also excel in battle.
> Again those 300-700 virtual points. You don't have those points,
I can get 'em. See above. I did that for the Trapezians for instance.
> They can't even trade it.
I agree the JOATs don't have tradable specials. Course, the CAs do, and
they are IMHO even more unbalanced than the JOATs.
> I don't call extra MM no weakness.
There is no extra MM from NAS when one is a JOAT.
> Yes. Because that even with an economy which is 20% bigger.
It's more than that. As I have explained at length. It is whatever you
choose to spend those points on - which you can really get. If you
spend them on econ compared to another race, you will get more than a
20% advantage in econ.
> What good do 1000 extra resources do when your fleet can't FIND those
> nasty SS-ships.
I have never had a problem with that playing a JOAT. Ever. Why?
Partially because the scanning is so good; mainly because the faster
ramp-up let's me take the fight to them before they are ready, really.
He can't hid his worlds.
What good do those bigger worlds do when they are
> attacked by 10 Super Freighter full of the IS-orgy??
Seems a silly point to me. The IS edge is mainly econ, too. Done right
it can be comparable in scale to a JOATs, though IS races are less
flexible in that regard. I have never had to worry about too many
invaders from an IS enemy - it is not like it is hard to kill planets if
you can kill the defending fleets. Killing the fleets is the hard part,
and is to a very large extent econ (also some warfighting specials, also
a ton of diplomacy, also a lot of "operational art of war").
> If the advantage of the JOAT's is reduced to the level you want it,
> you actually killed the JOAT. With an good competitor on the other
> side you will NEED that bigger economy.
You will need *a* bigger economy, as I have agreed. But JOATs do win
more games than the other non-CA PRTs, you know. It is not like I am
making this up. I am explaining where I think the cause of it is;
denying the phenomenon hardly seems a reasonable response to that
attempt, IMO.
> Like other players stated stars is an game of strategy,
Of course it is. The question is whether 1. econ is a big part of the
strategies that win and 2. some races are better at that than others.
Look, the Jeffs admit that the tech vs. econ side of things needs
rebalancing, thus the 3.0 changes. Why is it hard to admit this is a
problem, then? It ought to be conventional wisdom by now, I would have
thought.
> Its look like that the economical side of the game has got too big,
> while the warfighting side is nearly forgotten.
I have no idea why you say this. There are questions here every day
about points of tactics. Diplomacy is the biggest thing in stars and
IMHO always will be, just because it's multiplayer. It's not like
recognizing the importance of econ, or balance problems related to
that, renders anyone blind about other things. To pretend it does is
just a straw man. Someone saying "x is important" does not mean "all
non-x is forgotten".
> For ONE race economy is their PRT, so
> anything that reduces that PRT into the scale you want it to be, is
> actually destroying that PRT.
This is silly. Obviously, we agree the JOAT should have some econ
edge. The same logic that says any reduction in the current amount of
it "destroys the PRT" would say so no matter how large that edge was.
There is a right amount for it, which makes it fairly well balanced.
You and I may disagree about how much that is, but here you aren't
making a case for a different amount but saying "any reduction kills the
PRT". Why, I have no clue. JOATs win more than games than most PRTs
now; on it's face, that is evidence that the edge they have is certainly
adequate and perhaps too large. On its face that suggests there is some
reduction in their edge that would not kill the PRT.
E.g. suppose NAS gave no points, or say 17 points only, for a JOAT race
(it gives few to SS because SS and PP races get penscanners anyway,
already). Then the points available for JOAT designs would fall 90-107
points. Would that in your opinion "kill" the PRT? Do you have any
reasons why you think it would? I'd still play them.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Sjaak Zomer
>Well, I will go through this. But I must say, I feel like this is some
>"be argumentative" convention. Some of the points made into
>disagreements here just seem really forced to me. Still, I think it is
>useful to hash these things out.
Ohhh. And those 700 points are not!??
Lets be serious. I think that are you are way over the line here. I
did never stated that the JOAT's are perfectly balanced, but if you
got what you wanted, you will reduce the JOAT to a silly non-playable
race. Moreover we still got the far more powerfully CA's to consider.
I do think that those 107 points for taking NAS is way to much, just
like the CA are getting, but reducing to 0 or negative is also not a
very good option. If I have to pay for NAS, I wouldn't do so, and I
don't think that any race will PAY for an disadvantage.
Where do you put Elec on when you got NAS!?? Expensive! Ofcourse most
of the JOAT's are putting this on expensive, so the major effect of
the extra range comes later into effect.
>> You only get tech3 if you have that field at expensive, so if you want
>> to have all tech 3 than you need to take all fields level expensive.
>
>Huh? Be logical here. The JOAT gets all levels 3, expensive or no.
>The others get 3 if and only if they take the 3 box and make the field
>expensive. The all starting at 3 the JOAT gets can't be *worse* than
>the box, because he *doesn't* need them expensive.
It is logical. If you want all tech3 you will need to tick that dammed
box. Its costs you 60 points. It's a CHOICE you have to made. Just
like some other choices, do I take IFE or not.
Those tech at 3 is almost the same worth as the 2*5 tech. Maybe more
or less, depends on the situation. I don't see you harassing IT's
because they have got 10 free techs.
>Now, if all you are saying is "no one should ever take the box; it's a
>lousy deal" you might make a case that it is worth less than 60. But
>e.g. in tight games, Acc BBS, etc the starting tech is often useful, for
>many races (*not* with all expensive of course).
Under normal circumstances its a lousy deal. Especially if you are an
JOAT. I can spend those 60 points better at other fields, which would
make up for this easily. Especially when you have got few expensive
fields. BTW if the JOAT spends those 60 points he will get also all
tech4, that's only 1/3 of what the other races get. Is that fear. Yes,
I do know that those 4th field is more expensive.
>
>> Yes. The MAIN advantage of the JOAT. BTW what would it cost to have
>> ALL ships move 0,5 faster!?? Wow a free Overthruster at every ship.
>> That can save me 40 resources
>
>Overthrusters cost 20 resources, not 40. Extra speed is useful, but the
>resources involved are tiny compared to econ size differences.
Right, when i checked the file, I was using an BET race.
>A resource track for a whole game, or just until the outcome is
>overdetermined, can easily run 3-5 million resources, more in larger
>games. 1/3rd differences in things that big are big differences - whole
>fleets worth.
>
>That is not why the speed is useful, though - its the extra design
>options it opens up. Of course the other races get specials; the
>question is whether the scale of the econ edge the econ races can get is
>too large or not.
Speed is usefully because your ships are faster into battle, so that
you can destroy more ships. The free slot can be used to put other
things onto that slot.
A Beam-Deflector or an extra fuel pod is the most logical option. It
can be even worse when we are talking about GP-slots.
WIth an Beam-Deflector we are talking about combat-value, which is
quite handy in battle. <G>
>> Yes, because they also need to sacrifice an entire ship-slot for using
>> those free pen-scans. All other races can move up to SFX for doing
>> those scanning, not like the JOAT. they have to stick with scouts etc.
>> That what I call an disadvantage. How many scouts do you see, doing
>> actual scouting!??
>
>What are you talking about? Frigate minelayers cover the whole interior
>of a JOAT empire. Throwaway frigate minesweepers (or DDs if you prefer
>those for sweeping) scan everything in creation continuously.
>People tend to use minelayers and minesweepers. If not, they might try
>them - they work very well.
Wait an moment, you are talking about turn 2498 or so. I am talking
about the start of the game.
So that misunderstanding is the world out. I am not talking about
frigate minelayers. I am talking about *COUT LIKE* ships. I hope that
you agree with me that besides the JOAT-Scout (FM, Scout, Fuel Pod)
the SFX is the best long range scout, especially in Large/Huge
universe. you will need them anyway, they are cheap, can be produced
everywhere and they give out extra fuel. And ofcourse the fuel tank
make the ship quite handy, for long term scouting.
The JOATs (especially an NAS-JOAT) don't use them for this reason. Why
are penscans used! Yep, for preventing getting blown away, except when
you want it.
I use them for scouting and getting new designs. I don't use my
precious SFX for it. I build those scouts with dozens and try to keep
them always moving. Which will cost you much time. A sitting scout is
only waiting to get destroyed, so I will move them ALWAYS!
>> The only way to spend those 400 virtual is spending in economy, I
>> stated VIRTUAL, because they are already spend.
>
>Well, the box points are spent if you like. The others are not. I
>meant my recommended experiment literally. You can play a JOAT with
>5/6ths the factory settings, etc, etc, if you e.g. want to spend the
>points on better tech or LRTs or mineral-getting ability. Where do I go
>in the wizard to get back the 400+ points I spent for my WM bonuses if I
>want to spend them on something else? Oh, right, the PRT screen,
>switching to JOAT. Which is my point.
The JOAT will start with the 25.000 pop like the others. Their only
advantage is when they get bigger worlds. They will get at 25% with
300.000 pop, thats indeed 50.000 pop more, but they need to breed them
first. Which ofcourse take time. Its not like that the JOAT"s pop are
20% more effective, but you have more of them in the long run.
It slow down the moving-away the pop something later, but if you wait
to long, you will get less worlds, because they are already taken.
>The JOAT's excell in
>> economy. While the WM excel in battles.
>
>1000 nubians also excel in battle.
So 800 cloaked nubians will excel even better, because they will
attack without warning.
>> Again those 300-700 virtual points. You don't have those points,
>
>I can get 'em. See above. I did that for the Trapezians for instance.
And you are actually giving away your PRT advantage. If you don't want
those 20% better economy, don't play the race.
You are like the IT that never build their any/any gates. Stating
thats not fair.
At the moment that you don't use your Primary Advantage you are
ashamed for your PRT. So get another one, or don't play.
>> They can't even trade it.
>
>I agree the JOATs don't have tradable specials. Course, the CAs do, and
>they are IMHO even more unbalanced than the JOATs.
So lets give the JOAT something to trade. Like I stated before Stars!
is an game in which warfaring and diplomacy is very important. The
JOAT has got an severe disadvantage when you are talking about
diplomacy. So lets give the JOAT something to compensate. In-Game
trading of information perhaps. Then the inbuilt penscan can be really
worthwhile.
>
>> I don't call extra MM no weakness.
>
>There is no extra MM from NAS when one is a JOAT.
Yes. maybe because its playing style, but I tend to keep as much as
scouts as possible in the air. And you will need them for preventing
the SS attack you suddenly. Thanks to the NAS you planetary scanners
are quite useless for keeping an eye out of enemy planets. So you will
need ships to do so.
Ofcourse we are talking about the 2450 or so. The Snooper 320X is far
more effective in keeping an eye on close by enemy worlds than an
scout with elec10. So you will need more scouts. You can use your
minelayers, never really considered them. Nice idea! But actually I
never used mines at a large scale.
>
>> What good do 1000 extra resources do when your fleet can't FIND those
>> nasty SS-ships.
>
>I have never had a problem with that playing a JOAT. Ever. Why?
>Partially because the scanning is so good; mainly because the faster
>ramp-up let's me take the fight to them before they are ready, really.
>He can't hid his worlds.
You maybe have never experienced, but I do. We are two very different
persons, and I am talking from my side of view. And I do think that
the JOAT's have got some not-to-fair advantages, but they are not form
the scale you are talking.
The SS only got 43 points because they still got an pen-scan scanner.
The JOAT get that much more points, because they haven't got any
scanner. And an extra scout is far more expensive than a silly
Chameleon scanner. That is why the JOAT still got their full points.
Reducing it somewhat between the present JOAT and the present SS level
might be more fair, but that it. But not lower. And those idiots
telling that NAS will have to cost the entire pen0scanners are
outright stupid.
If you play right, you can blind an entire fleet by killing those
scouts/frigates/destroyers. Ofcourse its work, but that just tactical.
>
>What good do those bigger worlds do when they are
>> attacked by 10 Super Freighter full of the IS-orgy??
>
>Seems a silly point to me. The IS edge is mainly econ, too. Done right
>it can be comparable in scale to a JOATs, though IS races are less
Great. So now the IS are also to big....
Sometimes I do think that people state "JOATs are to big" just because
its easier to get the economic advantage out of the JOAT race then
getting the tactical advantage out of WM/IS/SD and the other PRT's.
Just build some extra factories, or move those colonists to smaller
worlds. You can even play it onto autopilot. But designing an good SS
ships is more difficult.
JOATs are a fairly easy race to play, its merely dumb force. Until you
run out of minerals ofcourse. I don't think that anybody mentioned
them. When I was playing my Joat race in a special game (50 pregen, 50
years peace) I have put my HW-mineral level up to 1. While most of the
other HW are still above 1. So thanks to my bigger pop, I got all of
the minerals out of my planet. And ofcourse you tend to use those
minerals.
I prefer to have an steady flow of minerals, above all of my minerals
at turn 1. Why!?? Easy, if you consume them all, you don't got more.
(oh yes, you could save them, but when you are under attack you will
use all the materials you need). But this is a little beside this
disagreement.
>flexible in that regard. I have never had to worry about too many
>invaders from an IS enemy - it is not like it is hard to kill planets if
>you can kill the defending fleets. Killing the fleets is the hard part,
>and is to a very large extent econ (also some warfighting specials, also
>a ton of diplomacy, also a lot of "operational art of war").
>
>> If the advantage of the JOAT's is reduced to the level you want it,
>> you actually killed the JOAT. With an good competitor on the other
>> side you will NEED that bigger economy.
>
>You will need *a* bigger economy, as I have agreed. But JOATs do win
>more games than the other non-CA PRTs, you know. It is not like I am
>making this up. I am explaining where I think the cause of it is;
>denying the phenomenon hardly seems a reasonable response to that
>attempt, IMO.
I am not denying it, I am only stated that what you seems to be
wanting will kill the JOAT's.
You can't reduce the 20%, because less won't cut into the action.
Anybody can have 10$ more pop, taking OBRM. The all-tech 3 is quite
fair, so that is also out.
The free pen-scan is just improved, since 2.6/7 I think. Or anyway, I
have seen something like this with some old article.
The only thing that will stay is to reduce the NAS-bonus. A little not
much. Reducing with 25-50 points will do.
>> Like other players stated stars is an game of strategy,
>
>Of course it is. The question is whether 1. econ is a big part of the
>strategies that win and 2. some races are better at that than others.
>Look, the Jeffs admit that the tech vs. econ side of things needs
>rebalancing, thus the 3.0 changes. Why is it hard to admit this is a
>problem, then? It ought to be conventional wisdom by now, I would have
>thought.
I STATED that I was thinking that the JOAT's advantage might be to
big, but not to the level you are thinking.
>> Its look like that the economical side of the game has got too big,
>> while the warfighting side is nearly forgotten.
>
>I have no idea why you say this. There are questions here every day
>about points of tactics. Diplomacy is the biggest thing in stars and
>IMHO always will be, just because it's multiplayer. It's not like
>recognizing the importance of econ, or balance problems related to
>that, renders anyone blind about other things. To pretend it does is
>just a straw man. Someone saying "x is important" does not mean "all
>non-x is forgotten".
Looks who is talking. Who is working out his races to the 15th level,
who is stating always take better/more factories.
If I post (or somebody else( a race, who is yelling. Get more
resources/better habitat/popgrowth.
Everybody knows that you are one of the experts at that field. So lets
forget about this little accident of you.
>> For ONE race economy is their PRT, so
>> anything that reduces that PRT into the scale you want it to be, is
>> actually destroying that PRT.
>
>This is silly. Obviously, we agree the JOAT should have some econ
>edge. The same logic that says any reduction in the current amount of
>it "destroys the PRT" would say so no matter how large that edge was.
Okay. I will say it once more. I have stated "reduces the PRT into the
scale you want it to be, is actually destroying that PRT."
You are even quoting my own text. READ IT.
>There is a right amount for it, which makes it fairly well balanced.
>You and I may disagree about how much that is, but here you aren't
>making a case for a different amount but saying "any reduction kills the
>PRT". Why, I have no clue. JOATs win more than games than most PRTs
>now; on it's face, that is evidence that the edge they have is certainly
>adequate and perhaps too large. On its face that suggests there is some
>reduction in their edge that would not kill the PRT.
Ofcourse I would like to have an extra ability, and it don't even need
to be only JOAT's only. How about copying scanning info to a specific
ally. It could be even ship based. Just like an minelaying order..
This would give everybody some way of making friends, or paying for
those OA's.
>E.g. suppose NAS gave no points, or say 17 points only, for a JOAT race
>(it gives few to SS because SS and PP races get penscanners anyway,
>already). Then the points available for JOAT designs would fall 90-107
>points. Would that in your opinion "kill" the PRT? Do you have any
>reasons why you think it would? I'd still play them.
I would just play without NAS. I will need at least 50/60 points for
such a big disadvantage, otherwise I won't use it.
Just the same reason why I don t like CE. The points are not good
enough, or the penalty is to severe.
Sjaak Zomer
Jason Cawley
Sjaak Zomer wrote:
> Ohhh. And those 700 points are not!??
> Lets be serious. I think that are you are way over the line here. I
> did never stated that the JOAT's are perfectly balanced, but if you
> got what you wanted,
I didn't say a JOAT should pay 700 points, I said their econ edge and
other things can be worth that much. Obviously JOATs need an econ edge,
and the most they can get vs. some other race isn't the average they get
from their advantages in wizard point terms. I said they ought to have
more like a 200-300 edge IMO, and they get close to 400 at least from
their racial advantages now. That is the scale of the correction I am
thinking they might need - 400 - (200 or 300) = 100 or 200 fewer points
worth of good things.
Take a sample design as an example - this one the JOAT abilities are
worth about 400-450 points. Not saying this is any great design, of
course - it's just an example.
HP remote mining one immune two narrow PP race
PP
IFE, NRSE, NAS, LSP
Grav immune, temp 52/172, rad 63/93, 1/10 overall
19% pop growth
1/2500 pop eff
15/8/20 3G factories
10/3/15 mines
weapons and energy cheap, rest expensive and start at 3.
OK? Idea is NAS doesn't prevent penscanning packets; those will find
the few good worlds fast, remote mining will bring minerals, cheap
energy gets the temp terra and the drivers, cheap weapons the rad terra
and of course weapons. Maybe the pop is overkill for an HP, but can get
good acheived pop growth to midgame, minerals from remotes later and to
G-ramp, etc. Not any great shakes, just a race.
Now make it a JOAT. no start at 3 box. 16 factories operated and 12
mines gives the same capacity (a little higher, actually, from the
pop). 18% growth would give at least as many people; even 17% might get
about as many (more from breeders, and most of the pop comes from the
great breeders with this sort of race). Might move the cheap field to
con.
Gave up all the great PP abilities, second starting planet, etc. What's
the point total read? +400 - 450 points to spend (18% pop or 17%).
Suppose I put 'em all in hab - then I can get -8/192 temp, 48/98 rad,
1/4 plus one immune rather than 1/10. If I just go for HP capacity I
can have 25 factories operated and 21 mines - 4980 max planet size vs.
3400, 46.5% more. Or suppose I improve the tech as long as that is
cheap then improve the econ - then I get 2 cheap, 3 normal, bio
expensive, with 20 factories and 15 mines operated back giving 20% more
econ capacity, plus cost 7 mines to achieve that faster. All with 18%
pop growth which will certainly grow more people by midgame, with the
larger breeders.
Now, we agree the JOAT should be better at econ things - and this may
not be the best way to make one, of course (since the design idea came
from a PP strategy, etc). But is +47% capacity, or +20% capacity and
much better tech and faster compounding, or 2.5 times the hab ratio, all
with more achieved pop growth too, not too much? I take it you admit it
is. We only seem to be disagreeing about size (and maybe how-tos) of
proposed remedies - which aren't really going to happen anyway :-) Even
that may just be a misunderstanding, not a substantive disagreement.
But that is the sort of example of "400+ points" I am thinking of.
> I do think that those 107 points for taking NAS is way to much, just
> like the CA are getting, but reducing to 0 or negative is also not a
> very good option. If I have to pay for NAS, I wouldn't do so, and I
> don't think that any race will PAY for an disadvantage.
Sure, not having NAS is useful for trading purposes, though one gives up
the doubled standard scanning range. I think it ought to be less than
an SS gets. Maybe 15-25 points, say. At that figure, you'd probably
pass on NAS and I'd probably take it - a different assessment of what
its worth that is decent evidence its close to the right figure, I'd
say.
> Wait an moment, you are talking about turn 2498 or so. I am talking
> about the start of the game.
At the start of the game no one has fuelxports. You said the JOAT needs
to waste a slot on scanning ships - that is the issue I was addressing.
By the time people have fuelxports they have frigates. I start making
frigate minelayers as soon as I have frigate hulls. And I use armed
ones for gunboats and as minesweepers after they become obsolete for
battle. No slots used I wouldn't use otherwise. No timing issues.
> So that misunderstanding is the world out. I am not talking about
> frigate minelayers. I am talking about *COUT LIKE* ships.
JOATs don't need special scout-like ships (except first 20 years or so,
before anyone has fuelxports - and JOATs are a lot better than others
then too, and scrap those eventually just like everyone). The
minesweeper frigates do the job. They are super cheap; easy to have
scores early and hundreds late, easy to replace any lost. Their
survivability results from their being everywhere and splitting all over
the place and swarming enemies, etc. I usually build 20 or so of them a
year late to feed into the cloud and replace losses; sometimes more.
They are so cheap I use them as chaff, too. Being so light and with
fuelmizers, they go wherever they want. If you prefer bigger DD
minesweepers those will work too (not quite as well IMO at the scouting
role) - whatever you like to use for sweeping.
> The JOAT will start with the 25.000 pop like the others. Their only
> advantage is when they get bigger worlds. They will get at 25% with
> 300.000 pop, thats indeed 50.000 pop more, but they need to breed them
> first. Which ofcourse take time.
It makes almost no difference; everyone breeds to the crowding limits so
fast anyway. Virtually all one's achieved pop growth is determined by
hab * crowding after the exporting starts. Every JOAT breeder grows 20%
more pop every year; that means 20% higher slope in the close to linear
part of everyone's resource curve. (top 10 planets almost always
account for 80-90% of all pop growth BTW, for non-CAs, non-HEs anyway) -
it's the pop from the breeders that matters.
Achieved pop growth to midgame with most JOATs will be equal to a
standard race (non CA) with the same other settings and 2% higher pop
growth rate in the wizard; sometimes 1%, sometimes 3%.
Its not like that the JOAT"s pop are
> 20% more effective, but you have more of them in the long run.
> It slow down the moving-away the pop something later, but if you wait
> to long, you will get less worlds, because they are already taken.
You can go whenever you like. Everyones HW gets above 25% of cap early
anyway.
> >I can get 'em. See above. I did that for the Trapezians for instance.
> And you are actually giving away your PRT advantage. If you don't want
> those 20% better economy, don't play the race.
Not true IMHO. JOATs are flexible; you can choose what you want them to
be good at. For the Trapezians, I took good tech (weapons + con cheap,
bio expensive, rest normal), HG style econ with the same ~3000 planet
size other HGs have, ability to remote mine, ISB and IFE for fast
spreading out, plus 19% one immune pop growth with JOAT planet-size
breeders on top of that. Idea was settling speed, good tech, very rapid
pop growth, good minerals. All because it was designed for 16 in huge,
no teams, with narrow hab by special game rule (1/8 max).
I didn't take the +20% max planet resources, because I didn't think I
needed it. Certainly not compared to good minerals in huge, or good
tech for trading and to run for nubians before others. Worked very well
indeed. I got achieved pop growth over 12% to midgame (almost 13%
actually), the biggest empire at that point (smaller than a certain CA
later), tons of minerals, the best tech stuff before anyone else, and as
a result of those things by far the largest battlefleet in the galaxy.
Like, by a factor of 4 or 5 times, the largest fleet. With the highest
tech, too. A certain TT-CA passed me in econ around year 100, but with
the fleet difference that didn't really matter. Not when I was killing
10-20 worlds a year and had a lead of over *1000* in capital ships (and
they weren't cruisers, either).
> At the moment that you don't use your Primary Advantage you are
> ashamed for your PRT. So get another one, or don't play.
Oh, I am not ashamed of JOATs, I assure you. Nor am I ashamed of the
Trapezians as a race design or what they were able to do. Taking 20%
larger maximum resources per planet is not at all a requirement for
making a good JOAT. Wherever the points are most useful in the game at
hand...
> >There is no extra MM from NAS when one is a JOAT.
> Yes. maybe because its playing style,
Evidently. Really, between minelayers and minesweepers, the galaxy will
be covered. :-) It works...
> Ofcourse we are talking about the 2450 or so. The Snooper 320X is far
> more effective in keeping an eye on close by enemy worlds than an
> scout with elec10.
Not in my opinion - though frigates, not scouts. Ask Tzup :-) When I
hit him in that game, I had 100-150 minesweeper frigates with one
gatling each on the attack. His mines melted in no-time, except a few
farther places I wasn't threatening yet. I never had to hold up any
attack a single year because of his mines. And I always knew exactly
where everyone of his ships was and his total fleet strength. And
sacked a few to know all of his designs as soon as they were made, too.
Try doing that with a planetary scanner (ok, WM I guess, but they don't
sweep :-) He intercepted a few, but with traps leading interceptors to
my support fleets he lost more in all that than I did (he lost cruisers
while I lost 1-gat frigates). He never intercepted enough to prevent
sweeping before an attack for even one year, or to deny me any knowledge
at all.
And an extra scout is far more expensive than a silly
> Chameleon scanner.
Nope. Check. Frigate, full mizer, one gatling (one dinky shield
optional). Vs. any Chameleon ship you care to make. Better range and
multi-mission capable, too.
> If you play right, you can blind an entire fleet by killing those
> scouts/frigates/destroyers. Ofcourse its work, but that just tactical.
Well, done right by the JOAT you never will :-) There are scores that
can see any one point you want to hide; some are in mines; they jump
about at warp 8-9 and lead you to traps; there are always more since the
only limit on them is really 512 fleets not expense in any meaningful
way; they split and reform, suicide spot and sweep to 1 LY from your
planets - a whirling maze of activity :-) The JOAT player knows where
each is going next year and where his warships will be; you don't.
> JOATs are a fairly easy race to play, its merely dumb force. Until you
> run out of minerals ofcourse. I don't think that anybody mentioned
> them.
You are the one insisting I just have to spend all my advantage points
on +20% econ or such things; I'm the one pointing out they can be used
for anything the race wizard offers. The Trapezians got 3000 planet
size without OBRM, then used maximiners to get the minerals to assemble
those huge capital ship fleets (which had high tech because I spent
points on that too).
Is that "merely dumb force"? I'd call it more like "having it all" :-)
But IMHO it's too easy to have it all as a JOAT - which is not at all
the same as saying "bigger econ via dumb force". Even easier to have it
all as a CA - just start with 3*40 hab and tweek from there.
> I prefer to have an steady flow of minerals,
So remote mine. JOATs can afford it more than others can (points,
planet size, extra pop growth, cheaper tech in construction, ARM if you
like that sort of thing). Or buy better mine efficiency if you take
OBRM.
JOATs are flexible. That is why I keep saying "its about the points"
not just "bigger econ" things.
> I am not denying it, I am only stated that what you seems to be
> wanting will kill the JOAT's.
Well, perhaps my comments about my estimated size of the JOATs wizard
edge came across wrong. I have been outlining what I see as the problem,
not proposing solutions. I said JOATs now get close to 400-700 in the
wizard and I think more like 200-300 would be livable. Be conservative
- say down only ~100 points (like from my repricing NAS idea). I do not
think JOATs need to be fined 700 points :-) I think they ought to have
their edge in wizard things toned down some. Maybe ~100 is enough;
maybe they could survive as playable races down more like 200.
Whatever; in that range (e.g. NAS for +25 not +107, plus maybe max
planet size +15% say rather than +20%). Maybe they should get some
tradable and useful doo-hickey as compensation :-)
But I don't think we disagree very much on JOAT balancing; that was the
reason for my "overblown disagreement" comment. Maybe I was unclear
about the scale of the rebalancing things I have in mind for JOATs - not
that any of these things is going to actually happen anyway :-) Say,
ideally, NAS for 25-30? With maybe +15% planets in return for tradable
info? I don't think we are that far apart...
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Jason Cawley
Jason Cawley wrote:
(slight correction)
Or suppose I improve the tech as long as that is
> cheap then improve the econ - then I get 2 cheap, 3 normal, bio
> expensive, with 20 factories and 15 mines operated back giving 20% more
> econ capacity, plus cost 7 mines to achieve that faster.
Sorry, meant cost 7 factories of course, as anyone can see if you follow
along in the race wizard (100 points left at that point).
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
ElCabalero
In article <352f1e90....@news.supernews.com>, zome...@caiw.nl (Sjaak
Zomer) writes:
>Yes, because they also need to sacrifice an entire ship-slot for using
>those free pen-scans. All other races can move up to SFX for doing
>those scanning, not like the JOAT. they have to stick with scouts etc.
>That what I call an disadvantage. How many scouts do you see, doing
>actual scouting!?? In the last game I played all players, expect the
>JOAT's, moved up to those SFX's. (Ofcourse, I assume an Large/Huge
>universe) So the JOAT's sacrifice an ship-slot and have to take those
>ships with them, at every trip.
Errr, actually, as SS, I usually use Ultra-Cloaked frigates. As non-SS, I
usually use 10 Super-Stealth Cloak Galleons. It isn't just seeing what the
enemy does that counts, it's seeing it when he doesn't know I can. And if I
get 10 times the service life out of the galleon (I usually get more) it's
actually cheaper in the long run.
ElCabalero
In article <3527918f...@news.supernews.com>, zome...@caiw.nl (Sjaak
Zomer) writes:
>So that misunderstanding is the world out. I am not talking about
>frigate minelayers. I am talking about *COUT LIKE* ships. I hope that
>you agree with me that besides the JOAT-Scout (FM, Scout, Fuel Pod)
>the SFX is the best long range scout, especially in Large/Huge
>universe.
Nope, as I remarked earlier, the best long-range deep-penetration scout for
non-SS is the 10 Super Stealth Galleon (Preferably with scoops, but you can do
without, if they can't see you, you don't need to run). Scouts they can see
can be killed, and when you're operating deep in enemy territory, survivabilty
of your scouting platforms is a big deal, even bigger than "running time".
Sure, it costs a bloody fortune and a half (500 resources, typically), but with
Dolphins or better, you won't need many, and most will survive a long time.
Any other race can build 8 normal scouts or 4 SFX's instead of one cloaked
galleon (but the galleon will easily live 10-15 times as long), the JOAT can
build 25, which is why they don't usually do the same trick.
For SS, Ultra Cloak frigates are equivalent, and much cheaper. Anyway,
your whole point seems to be that the loss of one ship slot (I don't think it's
actually lost, but never mind) somehow compensates for the 95 points that a
JOAT gets for NAS. Let's look at that for a second, JOAT gets 95 points for
NAS, and SS gets 43. Which one is more hurt by NAS?
JOAT's can buy 4 extra factories, or another cheap field (or maybe one
normal one cheap), or another point of PGR, or significantly wider hab, for
taking a "penalty" LRT whose only penalty to them is the loss of a ship slot
(maybe), and you think that's balanced?
Yes, CA's are even worse, even pseudo-1WW TT CA's can eventually be nearly
live-everywhere, CA's can mine even more points from hab than JOAT's get from
NAS and tech.
>The SS only got 43 points because they still got an pen-scan scanner.
Two of them, actually, but the RB is very expensive, and requires tech 15
in elect and 10 in Bio and Energy. At the same tech, the JOAT can build 3
scouts for the cost of the scanner alone, and they'll have more range.
>The JOAT get that much more points, because they haven't got any
>scanner. And an extra scout is far more expensive than a silly
>Chameleon scanner.
And a hell of a lot cheaper than a Robber Baron. FM engine and fuel tank,
by midgame they'll cost you less than 20 resources each. Hell, that's cheaper
than the Dolphin scanner alone, you can build 2 for everyone else's 1. How is
that a disadvantage?
> That is why the JOAT still got their full points.
>Reducing it somewhat between the present JOAT and the present SS level
>might be more fair, but that it. But not lower. And those idiots
>telling that NAS will have to cost the entire pen0scanners are
>outright stupid.
Reducing it to zero would be fair, the JOAT scans are at most levels better
than the best available pen and non-pen scanners combined on the same hull, and
cost nothing. There's a narrow window where the Dolphin is better at pen-scan
then the equiv-tech JOAT, but it closes quickly, and the JOAT can build two for
one and get more actual coverage for the same outlay even in that window.
ElCabalero
In article <6g3goq$9...@bgtnsc01.worldnet.att.net>, Jason Cawley
<jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> writes:
>You know, it just is sort of striking to me. I found the CA advantages
>long ago, and since then (after a few testbeds, and with some exceptions
>for team games where each team was only allowed one CA, etc) I have
>refrained from playing them. Thomas seems to have found the same things
>and talks as though it is some great competitive virtue to play the CAs
>(or JOATs or ITs I guess in his case, based on his comments at any
>rate), while calling others who have noticed the balance issue whiners.
>I'm impressed by the difference in the apparent reactions.
I have to agree. I broke the 100K mark with a CA, and from then on I just
found CA's boring. I had hoped that if I turned the lessons CA's taught me to
other PRT's, I could find ways to achieve victory through tactical advantage
rather than economic. It didn't work out that way. No combination of
minimizing weakness' or playing to PRT strengths could put other PRT's on equal
footing 1v1 with JOAT's and CA's. The big hammer counted for more than toys
(one exception: A QS WM in smaller universes can eat anyone's lunch [except for
a factoryless CA]).
Why does the economically strongest race also have the strongest diplomatic
advantage? And no tactical disadvantages to offset those strategic strengths?
HE's were so feared because of their economic power that their gates were taken
away, where is the CA Achilles' Heel? Instead, they have a tactical advantage,
a way to gut the defenses of a planet and make their bombers more effective.
You really want to balance CA's? Take away their packet drivers, or their
remote miners.
And how, with that state of affairs and real games showing that CA's win
most games (and JOAT's most of the rest by leading a coalition against the
CA's) can anyone claim that it all balances out?
Damon Domjan
> I have to agree. I broke the 100K mark with a CA, and from then on I just
>found CA's boring. I had hoped that if I turned the lessons CA's taught me to
>other PRT's, I could find ways to achieve victory through tactical advantage
>rather than economic. It didn't work out that way. No combination of
>minimizing weakness' or playing to PRT strengths could put other PRT's on equal
>footing 1v1 with JOAT's and CA's. The big hammer counted for more than toys
>(one exception: A QS WM in smaller universes can eat anyone's lunch [except for
>a factoryless CA]).
And that's quite debatable IMO. The QS WM should be able to at least
keep up IMO...if it's setup properly anyway :) I find CA and JoAT
similarly unbalanced when I consider the following two tests: One, a
1/21 one immune CA with HP factories and 1/1000 pop eff got 73K with
no MM (just colonization straight from the HW using 1-2 colonizer
equipped privs with warp 7 drives). Two, several months ago, as a
rank newbie I posted a one immune 1/10 JoAT that got 48K (or
thereabouts, may have been 50K) with no MM, using the same
colonization from HW trick. I haven't been able to mimic those
results with the same level of MM using any other PRT. That says it
right there IMO.
Thomas Pfister
In article <352713d3...@news.pacbell.net>,
ro...@127.0.0.1 (Damon Domjan) wrote:
>
> > I have to agree. I broke the 100K mark with a CA, and from then on I
just
only 100K ?
thats pityful ;-)
> >found CA's boring. I had hoped that if I turned the lessons CA's taught me
to
> >other PRT's, I could find ways to achieve victory through tactical
advantage
> >rather than economic. It didn't work out that way. No combination of
> >minimizing weakness' or playing to PRT strengths could put other PRT's on
equal
> >footing 1v1 with JOAT's and CA's. The big hammer counted for more than
toys
> >(one exception: A QS WM in smaller universes can eat anyone's lunch [except
for
> >a factoryless CA]).
>
> And that's quite debatable IMO. The QS WM should be able to at least
> keep up IMO...if it's setup properly anyway :) I find CA and JoAT
_KEEP UP_? IMO the Kyfhos proof how SUCCESSFUL a WM could play even in
endgame. If i had to bet who would win now(2517) versus the Kyfhos in a 1:1
all other be neutral, I would give from all 5 CA/JoaTs only me a fair chance
to beat him, say 50:50, all other Kyfhos would eat alive even the ones
(Vitae,??,Centauri) who has from my knowledge a good lead resourcewise
compared Kyfhos. And if Mike hasnt changed the VC Kyfhos would have already
won the game, IMO
> similarly unbalanced when I consider the following two tests: One, a
> 1/21 one immune CA with HP factories and 1/1000 pop eff got 73K with
> no MM (just colonization straight from the HW using 1-2 colonizer
> equipped privs with warp 7 drives). Two, several months ago, as a
> rank newbie I posted a one immune 1/10 JoAT that got 48K (or
> thereabouts, may have been 50K) with no MM, using the same
> colonization from HW trick. I haven't been able to mimic those
> results with the same level of MM using any other PRT. That says it
> right there IMO.
>
You miss the point, No one says that a CA has not an advantage MM-wise and
therefore it is easier to run such a race without MM then any other. It is
still possible to have astonish K at 2450 with most PRTs, AR of course by
side, but this require MM. To reach 100K Res. is IMO with any normal PRT
possible with enough space and Acc. BBs in testbeds.
IMO these xK at 2450 or Arma-BB in 24.. are total meaningless.
A better benchmark would be IMO to give a race a territory of specific size,
say 40 Planets or one of these Tiny universe settings but havent the # planets
handy. Start with Acc.BBs and the goal should be in say year 2500-2510
to build the strongest possible Fleet. IMO this is much more realistic,
because most player play this way, claim a territory and develop til ~2500.
Leave a cluster with 2 planets uninhabited and set belongs SS-Races say IT
into the game, type one(two) world wonder to generate spying research. To have
two IT planets you need to leave Tiny of course, but its pretty easy to say
in medium which clusters make the territory, before scouting ofc. These
testbed isnt much harder to do then the xK benchmark. You need only to
colonize and to make a few G shipments, then let it flow. In 2500 you count
the minerals surplus the approx next 10 years gain, use notebook for it in
example, and figure out how many Nubians of specific Design (or whatever) you
could build with the Resources+Minerals you have/gain in these 10 years.
Or make it vice versa, test in which year have a race specific Tls altogether,
Nubi, Nexi, etc. surplus the calculated time resource+mineralwise to build say
1000 Nubis of specific design.
If every PRT could build in this environment a similar strong Fleet at the
same time this would proof that belongs sitting out all PRT do similar well.
Belongs Spoiler Races things look certainly different. A CA or a WM maybe a
JoaT too, do much better this way and have an edge because of race
abitilities. A WM because of the Ship hulls, less Weapon cost, BS Bonus say
and a CA because of Instaforming which allows to take over conquered territory
very easy. So i would admit that CAs this way played have a big advantage
versus most other PRTs this way played. Surprising enough, this is total okay
with me because they need that ;-). To play a spoiler race is disadvantageous
on its own as it is easier to defend and to sit it out. The Spoilerrace need
not only to fight against an enemy he plays also against the time. Each year
the defender
slows the Spoiler down the Spoilers chance to win the race goes down too.
Also Spoilers have in general all honorable races against them at least, its
harder to trade and many thing more.
If people think to cut off these edge of dynamic/aggressive Races(in
particular CA)at least all will play static and the games get more boring as
they already are.
I for myself play my CAs not Spoilerwise but sit in my territory to say so.
If i look at my races in the games and see the "usefulness" of my big
resources, my high growth and the Ability to Instaform and how many advantage
points i have throw away to buy it and what i could get instead if i have
taken an other PRT, with lower factoriy settings and growth, but nice
abilities, cheap Tech, more minerals etc. to play in my territory i´m
sometimes whining too ;-)
Thomas
Thomas Pfister
In article <6g50k5$4...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>,
jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net wrote:
>Thomas Pfister wrote:
>
>> how nice would _YOU_ think if _YOU_ play CA/JoaT or
>> whatsoever win the game
>
>Gee, I for one do.
>
I do too, i´m til yet unbeaten and only two games left, one with a good lead,
in the other #2 very near #1 ;-)
>> and the SS loosers claim you have won only because of
>> the advantageous PRT, would you not say that these SS-Guys are lousy
loosers?
>
> No, the situation is rather different. Speaking for myself of course.
> I play JOATs and kill ITs and SSs and PPs and I say those PRTs don't get
> as much from the wizard as CAs and JOATs do. I say a fair part of my
> edge in those games came just from the PRT I was playing. I've been on
> the other side too, of course - winning with SD by using a warfighting
> edge and a long-run strategy and diplomacy. The diplomacy is the
> biggest thing in stars games, so any PRT can win. But that doesn't mean
> their strengths or chances are equal. If any of players who used other
> PRTs and got killed by my JOATs say the wizard isn't balanced, they are
> just saying something true. I certainly wouldn't call them poor
> losers. I freely grant being JOAT gave me an edge over non-CA, non-JOAT
> races in such games.
>
> Care to explain to me why I find that so easy and you seem not to?
My point of view is total different from your belongs Empires power. You
define
it resource/growthwise, i do not. You define it when get a race Arma-BBs, i do
not.
Your playstyle seems to be (maybe i´m wrong) offensive, my one is defensive.
Therefore i define what my Empire need different then you do.
My Empire needs good tech overall to have a wide variety to defend,
the ability to live (near) everywhere to fill my territory and to have more
planets
then the average to have more minerals then average so that
i could build in endgame more of my Endgame-Nubians then everyone else and
sooner
then everyone else, if possible. To reach this goal i need around 100 turns
with Acc.BBs say, the amount of resources to do so is total unimportant as
long
as i made my goal and i could build enough ships every turn in endgame.
Lots of Res and expansive Tech need in my experience longer then decent Res.
and cheap Tech.
And this way i play. I try to reserve me at the begin my part of the galaxy
with
agreements and fill it out. The CA-Ability is for this total important,
because
i have the time to wait, as long as i fall not too much behind others. I dont
need the CA-growth possibilities, even a 15% SS would fill and TF my
territory, but
granted to get rid of the TF-MM is nice and i like that.
Stars! has a big failure games last too long, therefore people make testbeds
to prove
their new knowledge, i too. One kind of my testbeds is that i replay games
with other
race designs. I give my testbed race exact the same space (planetwise) as it
has in
a really game and tryout how these new race would do in the same game
situation
compared to the real race. Maybe for you surprising, a SS-Race of my own would
do in given game situations similar well, granted this is ofc. not 100% exact,
as
maybe other players dislike SS therefore trade and other things you couldnt
replay really
well. But at least it shows that such a SS-Race fulfill _MY_ goal in similar
time,
so for my gamestyle a SS, IS, or whatsoever has belongs to my gamegoals the
same
or very similar results, so for me such PRTs are similar powerful then CAs,
surplus
they have nice Abilities and items.
(And for the case you might ask, why i nevertheless played only CA, quite
simple,
i signed only two times up with own races, first time 4 games with a race i
designed
before my first PBEM and the second time after a few experiences with an
improved
Design. How it will be in games vs Human players i had no really idea even at
the time
i designed the second race, _NOW_ i know how _I_ and other play in PBEM)
You might say this all sounds very nice, but you have certainly had a lot of
luck
because if someone had attacked you you were dead, because of worse Weapon
say.
But i get attacked. In one game with a factoryless CA i had since turn 30 or
so War
with the big Spoiler-CA. He had in example in year 2450 40K Res vs. me 18 K,
lots better
Weapon Tech too surplus i had BET that makes me alot trouble. I need to fight
him til turn 70 more or less alone, because all my Allies were weak, had
another war on
hand or nead time to develop. Since year 60 i had war with the third CA in
game too.
The result was the big Spoiler-CA has given up around turn 75 because he run
out
of minerals because of his shiplosses against me. I was able to predict all
his attacks
and therefore able to gate Forces slightly more then necessary to win all
Battles and
i have even not bothered to lay mines. Particular Reasons for the success was
that i had
better overall Technology and therefore much better possibilities to counter
Designs
or to scan fleets, he was only good in Weapon. I could trade with all
honorable races
and backup areas there my race was weak, he couldnt. I could live everywhere
so even
if i lost a gate i had always some planets one travelyear away to counter. A
few of my weak
borderplanets get more then 5 times wiped out only to get rebuilded 1-2 turns
thereafter.
The Spoiler-CA had a relative small hab, therefore could most of his colonies
not back
up, a lost colony was always lost forever.
A SS-Race instead of my factoryless CA could do similar successful, granted a
factoryless
probably not, but one with wide hab, decent growth, 11/9/16 factories and same
tech setting
(3 cheap, 1 normal) say. 18 K and the same Tech i had with ~40 planets sounds
to me pretty
doable with Acc.BBs at 2450, surplus all the Toys the CA had not of course.
From my experience in games my develop territory playstyle as i describe is
very similar to
most players style, unspoken of course, and aggressive players are relative
rare.
So if for me other PRTs then CA have in "realistic" testbeds similar results
then my CA,
other players should be able to do too.
The reason why these SS, IS or whatsoever player do not very well is IMO
because their
race design fit not their playstyle. If the playstyle is similar to my one,
the race
need the ability to live (near) everywhere. A lot players (me too) dislike to
share
territory with others so this means to take a wide hab, or TT and a bit
smaller
hab to have the needed planets and to fill the territory. A high growth rate
is not
essential 16, 17% will do. Also IFE is total pointless for such races because
its
quite possible to fill the territory with normal engines too.
Player should also try to grab really all planets in the territory even red
ones at that
time, sure the greens first. Even i as CA have grabbed seriously (say 50K
Pop)possible greens
long before they turned green, NONE-CA have much more reason to grab early and
could do the
possible TF, byside facts/mines.
Also they should ask around all players because of trade
Tech, the CA´s about OAs, the AR about Germanium, and so on and look to have
something
interesting to trade away. In most cases a trade and later more trades will
happen and
to ask cost nothing. A big failure is also to trust remote mining, i have in
all games
i´ve played only one player seen who has succesful played with remote mining,
a WM with afaik
reasonable mine settings.
If i look at these races in games who do not very well, their races fit not
with
all/most of them. The hab is small so less planets then average and
intersettling ofc.
But intersettling is most begging for trouble and makes only the live
everywhere races
bigger. They colonize not the possible-green planets before they get yellow.
IFE for nothing, remote mining without planets to remote mine left, no much
talk with other
players and therefore worse trading, etc. I would say a good part of these
problems
is poor race designing belongs to their playstyle and has really nothing to do
with
unbalanced PRTs.
I grant (again) that the race wizard in many ways is unbalanced. AR in example
i think need
improvements belongs to the midgame, but OTOH also to cutoff the endgame
remote mining.
SD and PP seems to me also somewhat weak, but i´m not sure about. The LRT´s
costs/gains
are sometimes a joke. I would say that races who have racial Pens should pay
while taking NAS.
IFE+ISB IMO cost too much. NRSE should gain no points, etc.
Growth rate cost should be different like this way
11% 550 gain
12% 500 gain
13% 450 gain
14% 400 gain
15% start
16% 350 cost
17% 300 cost
18% 250 cost
19% 200 cost
20% 150 cost
cost/gain belongs to this click, so accumulative and of course only as general
proposal and
better made as curve then linear. Sure immunity need to be outbalanced new
thereafter.
But races with growth below 15% say til 8% gain to less points as it is to buy
enough
to compensate the low growth IMO, my proposal would make the race-variety
wider.
The Level 3 box should go away, players who take +75% should get TL 3 (JoaT TL
4) for free.
And much more
But i admit not to say that SS PRT(and all other PRT byside PP,SD,AR) is less
powerful
then CA PRT, IMO not(rare exceptions because of specific game settings,
playstyles are
granted, but are meaningless) and i believe i have explained why i think so
and said reasons
and have heard in return only as ´argument´, because we say so. I´m sorry.
>> But remember I said one of Jasons standard
>> HG-CAs(Weapon cheap, all other expansive).
>
>CAs, or JOATs, can be made decent at tech and better than most other
>races in econ, both. I certainly never said that whatever non-JOAT,
>non-CA race you design, the CA I can make it that will be better than it
>in real games will have all expensive tech, now did I? In a game with 3
>teams of 2 in small I might take a cheap weapons only, rest expensive
>race meant to be an economic powerhouse solely. I'm playing one now, a
>JOAT. In a 16 in huge no team game, I might take better tech, e.g.
>weapons and con cheap, bio expensive, rest normal. Played one like that
>recently, another JOAT. Expensive tech is not at all a requirement. I
>certainly have never said so, either, so I don't understand your comment
>at all.
>
>And for the matter of that, where do you get the idea I have some
>standard CA? I don't, you know. I don't even play them.
Your standard HG-CA, is a CA with IFE,NRSE and OBRM ~ 1/4 hab, 19% growth
1 to 1000, 11-12,9,16 G-Box 10,3,~15, Weapon cheap, other expansive. At least
this is the advice if someone ask about comments about his CA-Design you give
if
the one ask about a NON-TT NON-factoryless CA, with slighlty differences here
and there of course. Now you know your Standard HG-CA ;-)
And i hope i remember your advice well and have not misdesigned "your" CA.
Take exceptions like TT/Bio cheap by side your advice in general in the NG
is along the line Weapon cheap, other expansive. Could only remember two
exceptions last time, the SS-thief and a IT with CON normal. I say not that
this is wrong or so, I had only the feeling you prefer this as you advocate
this so often, but i grant i havent count your advices and maybe i remember
wrong.
I save the time to answer your two other posts in whole, i disagree with
many of what you say in these posts, in particular for the uncalled personal
attacks. Let me only make two points.
1) You have spoken about fun to play. If i look at what we both(and some
others)
often do, i doubt that we do right. We analyze Stars! often in a manner that
has no longer with fun or playing in general to do. I mean to try to figure
out the last stars! formulas to improve the gameplay the last ,01% ruins the
game IMO, maybe a discussion worth.
2) I grant that it is somewhat pointless to accept my "Challenge" because its
impossible for the CA to win versus the SS(nethertheless if someone will try
;-)),
i hope you grant too that your challenge is similar pointless.
I could counter any CA-Design with a NON-CA/JoaT of my own in knowledge your
CA-Design
in the same manner as vice versa ;-) The "knowledge" makes the race, not the
PRT ;-).
I think i have explained my opinion enough, so i will stop posting to this
thread as long
as not really new args comes up.
Thomas
Sjaak Zomer
> And an extra scout is far more expensive than a silly
>> Chameleon scanner.
>
>Nope. Check. Frigate, full mizer, one gatling (one dinky shield
>optional). Vs. any Chameleon ship you care to make. Better range and
>multi-mission capable, too.
Weird scouts you make.
This is the scout I always use:
Scout Hull: RadRam Scoop, Fuel Pod costs at (26) 3/2/3/5
I will use them everywhere. But ofcourse I will actually going to
replace them by better prop-scouts later. The Prop-16 is an viable
option.
Those scouts are used not only for scouting, but also for keeping
track of designs. Planet-size and because they are unarmed everybody
can attack them, they are not a threat. I have sent them everywhere
and only sometimes they are being attacked. I will get a little angry
when somebody keeps destroying them, and I mostly tend to replace them
with armed Destroyers/Frigates. (But my final solution should send
them Armageddon Nubians with a couple of bombers, some paratroopers (a
silly million of 5 will do) but you get the picture. <G>
And ofcourse I will return the favor by destroying all ships of the
other race I see. What I normally don't do.
And don't say Weird Tactic or something like this, because this is how
I play.
The SS have got the Chameleon Scanner at (26) 1/1/1 6.
Triple the minerals.
Why trow-away an expensive scout, if you can have dozens of very cheap
ones. Scouts are scouts. Not your Frigates.
Your Frigates will cost (frig, radram, 3 minelayers) 5/11/9 47. Quite
expensive for learning new designs. And they are slow and heavy.
>> If you play right, you can blind an entire fleet by killing those
>> scouts/frigates/destroyers. Ofcourse its work, but that just tactical.
>
>Well, done right by the JOAT you never will :-) There are scores that
>can see any one point you want to hide; some are in mines; they jump
>about at warp 8-9 and lead you to traps; there are always more since the
>only limit on them is really 512 fleets not expense in any meaningful
>way; they split and reform, suicide spot and sweep to 1 LY from your
>planets - a whirling maze of activity :-) The JOAT player knows where
>each is going next year and where his warships will be; you don't.
Ofcourse not. I have way too many of them. But I have come into the
medium size of the game, where resources aren't that important
anymore, but minerals are.
>You are the one insisting I just have to spend all my advantage points
>on +20% econ or such things; I'm the one pointing out they can be used
>for anything the race wizard offers. The Trapezians got 3000 planet
>size without OBRM, then used maximiners to get the minerals to assemble
>those huge capital ship fleets (which had high tech because I spent
>points on that too).
Those so called advantage points ARE already spend. You don't have
them, just like an WM can't say, Okay I will work with an extra
man-jet, can I have 250 points!??
ITs the NATURE of the JOAT to be bigger and meaner. Those 200 points
you are throwing away are destroying that.
Do you know how this discussion sounds!?? Like the one we have at
alt.games.vgaplanets. There we have an couple of races that can build
fighters for free (only minerals, no credits/resources). But what
those fighter races don't have are toys. Like WebMines (stop fleets
and drain fuel) SuperRefit (upgrade weapons) Cloacking (100% cloaked!)
HyperShips (can move 350 ly) and so on.
And do you know what. Again and again we have the same discussions
"get rid of the free fighters" or "Fighter races are too powerful) and
again and again non-fighter races win, just as often as the fighter
races. But ofcourse economy don't have that impact in VGAP, the most
asked question are not "How do I get an big economy", but how do I
defeat this kind of fleet/ships-combo.
I do think that you are way overreacting. And way-overcomepensating.
Maybe if people like you spend their time of working tactics out in
stead of working economy out, things would be better. And those
tactics should use the extra toys of the race as an integral part.
I am using the free pen-scan like it should be used. Being everywhere,
seeing everything the entire game. Unlucky I am not very good in
sharing this information, nobody wants to pay for it. But I do think
that there should be in internal system of sharing info. A big lack of
the Jeffs in my book.
When somebody ask me. This is my habitat range. Where can I find
planets which I can use, I can answer them. For a price ofcourse.
>Well, perhaps my comments about my estimated size of the JOATs wizard
>edge came across wrong. I have been outlining what I see as the problem,
>not proposing solutions. I said JOATs now get close to 400-700 in the
>wizard and I think more like 200-300 would be livable. Be conservative
>- say down only ~100 points (like from my repricing NAS idea). I do not
>think JOATs need to be fined 700 points :-) I think they ought to have
>their edge in wizard things toned down some. Maybe ~100 is enough;
>maybe they could survive as playable races down more like 200.
>Whatever; in that range (e.g. NAS for +25 not +107, plus maybe max
>planet size +15% say rather than +20%). Maybe they should get some
>tradable and useful doo-hickey as compensation :-)
Oops. Now you are talking more serious. Why do you want to delete 200
points in the beginning of the story and now you get back to max 75
here!??
Lets about. Delete those 25 racial points and get back to +75 for NAS.
That will cost some 2 factories. And see what happens. Tuning the race
wizards down to far, will only result in not-played races.
And transferring Scout-info will be good enough as compensation, just
make it into an order.
I do think that very cheap 50/25 scanner is still an good idea.
Why making one race weaker when you can improve others a lit. I don't
think that the scale is that big compared to those 700 points.
Otherwise I would call your MILIONS of resources at least worth 1000
points
>But I don't think we disagree very much on JOAT balancing; that was the
>reason for my "overblown disagreement" comment. Maybe I was unclear
>about the scale of the rebalancing things I have in mind for JOATs - not
>that any of these things is going to actually happen anyway :-) Say,
>ideally, NAS for 25-30? With maybe +15% planets in return for tradable
>info? I don't think we are that far apart...
Oh yes.
The 20% planet size is vital. Otherwise, I would want to get the
cloacking of the SS back to 50%, the free overthruster back to free
manjet and so on.
But I don't think this is never going to happen. Not until there is
something done to the CA. Lucky for me.
Why are you keep changing opinions in your own articles!?? First you
are wanting to steal 200 points and now only 75. Weird guy.
Oh yes, that 15% will never going to happen, if they are smart.
Sjaak Zomer
Ron Hiler
Thomas Pfister wrote:
>
> In article <6g50k5$4...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>,
> jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net wrote:
>
> >Thomas Pfister wrote:
> >
> >> how nice would _YOU_ think if _YOU_ play CA/JoaT or
> >> whatsoever win the game
> >
> >Gee, I for one do.
> >
>
> I do too, i´m til yet unbeaten and only two games left, one with a good lead,
> in the other #2 very near #1 ;-)
>
Hmmmm. If I interpret that right, Thomas, do you mean to say that
you've *never* lost a game playing a CA?
And you still don't think the CAs are unbalanced? Nothing against your
playing expertise, mind you. I'm sure you are a very good player. But
no one, *no one* (not even Jason, hehe), should be undefeated in this
game. There are, after all, usually around 8 other players in the game,
and, all other things being equal, you should only win once every 8
times. Of course, you can raise that by designing a better race and
playing better, but no way can you make it be 100% win ratio, unless
something is seriously broken.
Like I said, in my game where there are 16 players and a max of 2 of
each of the PRTs, the two CAs are blowing everyone else away, hands
down. As far as I can tell, they are not any better players or race
designers than anyone else in the game. They just have, by far, the
best PRT in existence.
That's all the proof I need. Next game, no CAs. Period. :)
Ron
--
What do you get when you cross Sim-City, Stars!, and Civilization?
"Manifest Destiny" - the race for world domination.
Coming soon....
Jeff_M...@email.msn.com
We are aware that there are some imbalances in the PRTs today which could be
fixed relatively easily. However, there will be no balance changes for the
"i" release. The purpose of the "i" release is to unleash a hoard of new
tools and utilities for hosting and playing Stars!. Virtually every utility
writer out there is madly updating their code to support the new features
such as having about twice as much data in FLE and PLA files.
We want to make sure that everyone upgrades to "i" at the same time. Any
balance changes we made would cause a serious staggering of adoption. Players
would insist on finishing their current games because their races and
strategies were designed for the previous set of rules. I wouldn't blame them.
That being said, we will consider making the next patch, "j", be a "balance"
patch. As I've said before, due to the way that the economic model works in
Stars!, there will always be sweet spots in the race wizard. Stars! Supernova
will not suffer from that problem. For “j” I'm looking at a small number of
simple changes that will take the edge off what I see as the most significant
problems.
My current thinking would runs something like this:
NAS affects race specific abilities. In other words, you would not get any
pen scanners if you choose NAS no matter what your PRT was.
CA no longer terraform for free. The base terraform cost would be 50. With
total terraforming it would be 30.
Fuel Mizer engine would get a new fuel usage curve above warp 4. It would no
longer be possible to use this engine effectively at anything higher than
warp 4 for anything beyond very short distances.
I believe that this would cut a big chunk off of the balance problems.
Comments are welcome.
The "i" patch will be out around April 15th. The "j" patch, with this level
of changes, could probably make it out in July.
Jeff
Scoop
Jeff_M...@email.msn.com wrote:
>
> We are aware that there are some imbalances in the PRTs today which could be
> Fuel Mizer engine would get a new fuel usage curve above warp 4. It would no
> longer be possible to use this engine effectively at anything higher than
> warp 4 for anything beyond very short distances.
>
rtha...@cyberus.ca
On Sun, 05 Apr 1998 13:16:13 -0600, Jeff_M...@email.msn.com wrote:
[A lot of good ideas snipped.]
>Fuel Mizer engine would get a new fuel usage curve above warp 4. It would no
>longer be possible to use this engine effectively at anything higher than
>warp 4 for anything beyond very short distances.
Yikes! I hope you meant something like warp 7 or 8, not 4! Don't make
IFE another useless LRT.
How about doing something about mineral alchemy? 15 resources produce
1 of each mineral?
ElCabalero
In article <6g8hpb$vls$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Jeff_M...@email.msn.com
writes:
>NAS affects race specific abilities. In other words, you would not get any
>pen scanners if you choose NAS no matter what your PRT was.
Sounds good. Do that, and there's no need to give different points to
JOAT, SS, and PP than the rest, NAS will really be NAS.
>
>CA no longer terraform for free. The base terraform cost would be 50. With
>total terraforming it would be 30.
Could CA's use OA's on their own worlds? I don't want to gut CA, just tone
them down a bit.
>
>Fuel Mizer engine would get a new fuel usage curve above warp 4. It would no
>longer be possible to use this engine effectively at anything higher than
>warp 4 for anything beyond very short distances.
>
Well, that will suck, but the cheap and dirty Warp 9 was the best (read
"most imbalanced") deal in the Race Designer, IMHO. With it, you could easily
take expensive Prop, and come out only about 20 points in the hole, or even
ahead.
All in all, sounds good. Of course there will always be sweet spots, and
we'll always be looking for them. But the scale of advantage they confer can
be scaled down.
ElCabalero
>And that's quite debatable IMO. The QS WM should be able to at least
>keep up IMO...if it's setup properly anyway :)
It can keep up, but if it is going hammer-and-tongs with a factoryless CA
right from the gun, the other races aren't getting crippled the way the design
was banking on.
> I find CA and JoAT
>similarly unbalanced when I consider the following two tests: One, a
>1/21 one immune CA with HP factories and 1/1000 pop eff got 73K with
>no MM (just colonization straight from the HW using 1-2 colonizer
>equipped privs with warp 7 drives).
Sounds like the Valheru varient you built after I made the Superons. A 1
in 93 CA should be dead in the water, they weren't. Definitely something wrong
when a race can literally have it all, HP factories, HG pop growth and
efficiency, a few cheaper techs (Weapons and Energy for yours, as I recall),
and eventual live-anywhere hab. In universes large enough for the race to
reach TT 20 before the fighting starts, narrow-hab TT CA's are effectively
unstoppable unless everyone drops everything and goes after them.
> Two, several months ago, as a
>rank newbie I posted a one immune 1/10 JoAT that got 48K (or
>thereabouts, may have been 50K) with no MM, using the same
>colonization from HW trick. I haven't been able to mimic those
>results with the same level of MM using any other PRT. That says it
>right there IMO.
Yeah. Econ advantage is one thing, but that hammer is just a bit too big.
ElCabalero
In article <6g7q5h$5kt$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, 101....@germany.net (Thomas
Pfister) writes:
>You miss the point, No one says that a CA has not an advantage MM-wise and
>therefore it is easier to run such a race without MM then any other. It is
>still possible to have astonish K at 2450 with most PRTs, AR of course by
>side, but this require MM. To reach 100K Res. is IMO with any normal PRT
>possible with enough space and Acc. BBs in testbeds.
No, I will state categorically that it is flat-out impossible with any
non-CA. Jason could give you the figures on why no other PRT can get the
achieved pop growth to even theoretically get that high, I'll just say that it
could never happen. Even in testbed, 50K is just about maximum for any other
PRT (maybe 60 for JOAT).
Sjaak Zomer
On Sun, 05 Apr 1998 13:16:13 -0600, Jeff_M...@email.msn.com wrote:
snipped comments about i, j fix>
Hi,
I do hope that this is an very late 1 april joke.. But I really wanted
to give some comments.
>
>My current thinking would runs something like this:
>
>NAS affects race specific abilities. In other words, you would not get any
>pen scanners if you choose NAS no matter what your PRT was.
Okay.
So lets see. JOAT's will lose all pen-scanning PRT based ability. So
an LRT can effect an PRT. Great guys, the Lesser is more important the
Primary, So we will get an new race called the NASes.
The SS won't be able to use those Chameleon Scanner and ofcourse the
Robber Baron scanner. That was the NAS-SS.
I assume that the WM no longer can penetrate ships if they are NAS.
PP have no longer any Pen-scan packets.
AR will no longer be able to use their starbases for scanning.
I also think that the transferred scanners won't be able to work. Yep.
Everybody will probably work without that LRT.
So lets say five NAS guys out of the sky. Great work.
>
>CA no longer terraform for free. The base terraform cost would be 50. With
>total terraforming it would be 30.
I do think that those 50 points are to much. The effect will be that
probably nobody plays the CA's. I won't play it, cheap terraforming is
the only tool they got. This will probably kill the entire PRT. BTW
50% of 70 is still 35 points.
>Fuel Mizer engine would get a new fuel usage curve above warp 4. It would no
>longer be possible to use this engine effectively at anything higher than
>warp 4 for anything beyond very short distances.
Great another LRT gone. The FuelMizer is the reason for using this
PRT. I don't think that the rest is good enough for using it. Not with
that number of points.
>I believe that this would cut a big chunk off of the balance problems.
>Comments are welcome.
Oh yes. You will get an entire new game. All current planning are
useless. I will make sure, that I will never install this j-version
onto my hard disk. :-)
>The "i" patch will be out around April 15th. The "j" patch, with this level
>of changes, could probably make it out in July.
>
> Jeff
>
Sjaak Zomer
ElCabalero
>Yikes! I hope you meant something like warp 7 or 8, not 4! Don't make
>IFE another useless LRT.
>
Well, it would still give you 15% better fuel efficiency in general.
Still, without the FM, IFE should cost less.
Ron Hiler
Sjaak Zomer wrote:
>
> On Sun, 05 Apr 1998 13:16:13 -0600, Jeff_M...@email.msn.com wrote:
>
> snipped comments about i, j fix>
>
> Hi,
>
> I do hope that this is an very late 1 april joke.. But I really wanted
> to give some comments.
>
> >
> >My current thinking would runs something like this:
> >
> >NAS affects race specific abilities. In other words, you would not get any
> >pen scanners if you choose NAS no matter what your PRT was.
> Okay.
> So lets see. JOAT's will lose all pen-scanning PRT based ability. So
> an LRT can effect an PRT. Great guys, the Lesser is more important the
> Primary, So we will get an new race called the NASes.
But Sjaak, that's why it's a called *disadvantage*. That's why you get
points for it in the race wizard. The way it's set up right now, NAS
doesn't really mean NAS for a lot of the races. It's basically free
points for the JOATs, SS, PP, etc.
The way Jeff has proposed it, it will actually become a disadvantage
again, the way, I assume, it was meant to be.
>
> The SS won't be able to use those Chameleon Scanner and ofcourse the
> Robber Baron scanner. That was the NAS-SS.
I'm assuming they will still be able to use them. Why not? If a ship
is in deep space, you will still be able to see it without pen-scans,
and I don't see any reason why the piracy thing would be affected. So
what's the problem? CS and RBS will just be regular non-pen scanners
which you can use to steal. Sounds okay to me (and the SS are my
favorite PRT to play).
>
> I assume that the WM no longer can penetrate ships if they are NAS.
Why? Same argument as above. Spot a ship in deep space, and a WM will
know it's design. They just won't be able to detect ships in orbit.
Again, I don't see the problem.
>
> PP have no longer any Pen-scan packets.
I assume so. They'll be non-pen-scan packets. Doesn't break the race.
>
> AR will no longer be able to use their starbases for scanning.
That one I *really* don't understand. How will the AR be affected any
differently than any other race? I'm not real familiar with the AR,
having never played one (or played against one), so maybe I'm missing
your reference?
>
> I also think that the transferred scanners won't be able to work. Yep.
> Everybody will probably work without that LRT.
I'm assuming that pen-scanners will work just like all other ship
components. Since a pen-scan is an actual component (as opposed to a
built in ability, like the SS stealth), it will transfer just fine, same
as an OA will, for instance.
>
> So lets say five NAS guys out of the sky. Great work.
I just don't see how any of that "destroys" any of the PRTs. Sure, it
weakens a few of them, but again, that's why it's called a
*disadvantage*, that's what it's supposed to do. The way Jeff has
proposed it, it seems to me it smooths out all the problems assoicated
with that particular LRT. NAS will *mean* NAS, unless you can trade an
ally for a pen-scan vessle. Sounds very reasonable to me.
[clipped all the rest, since I have no comments about it]
Just my $0.02
Jason Cawley
Denis Grenier wrote:
> Well Jason, this thread started 21 posts away. I went trough it all
> and can't keep the pace. Could you post where your SS race is up
> right now? ;-)
Sure. The thread has grown to all the other issues; the original race
idea being sort of left behind :-)
Here's my current HP SS tech thief design -
Romulans
SS
IFE, NRSE, NAS, LSP
0.24/4.16g, -136/136C, 66-96mR
1/6 overall, almost 1/5 (1/2 with all yellows eventually)
18% pop growth
1/2500 pop efficiency
15/7/20 factories
G box checked
10/3/15 mines
Weapons and Construction cheap, Bio and Prop expensive, others normal
no start at 3 box
leaves 0 points.
Note that all this is before any balance changes like those Jeff McBride
says are being considered for a later, post-i possible patch :-) The
moving strategy (IFE, expensive prop) and the NAS would likely have to
change with those. Meant for standard starts in reasonably large
universes with many players.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Jason Cawley
Thomas Pfister wrote:
I will forget about our disagreements to just look at various balance
proposals, now the Jeff McBride has indicated some of these things might
actually happen. Just trying to keep things useful for the programmers
:-)
AR in example
> i think need
> improvements belongs to the midgame, but OTOH also to cutoff the endgame
> remote mining.
I tend to agree, on both points. Maybe just a tweek to the constants in
the formula, for instance (like /7 not /10, say, giving ~+20% resources
per world). And I think if the HW mining were limited to 4000 mine
equivalents it would help - too distorted on the mineral side late
otherwise (just one living AR with allies e.g. makes the minerals
unlimited for one side, etc). Might be a fair trade overall...
> SD and PP seems to me also somewhat weak, but i´m not sure about.
I think the SD is ok, though some work to actually play. The toys are
quite good, and get the most starting points (admittedly a minor
matter). Their wizard problems tend to come from not finding many of
the weakness LRTs viable (NRSE e.g.), plus needing all tech fields. If
BET and/or GR gave more points I think they'd be more playable (BET
would work well for all the minelayers wanted, GR need all tech fields
anyway). Especially if tech trading were a little harder/less prevalent
(GR) and/or there were some work around for tech 26 items (BET) allowing
them to be normal cost at 26. (Like, say, a BET tech thingie that could
be bought in-game via research that made tech 26 items normal expense,
or a "virtual" 27th level for BET races only).
PPs I am not sure about. The point cost for the PRT seems a bit high,
while anti-packet tricks are perhaps slightly too effective. I've had
some interesting test results trying them one immune two narrow then
using the packets to get the yellows green fast. My guess is there is
more there in the packet terraforming ability that hasn't really been
investigated enough yet, in terms of what it can do for econ
development, etc. But I don't know a whole lot about the PPs (some of
that may be because less time has been spent investigating them - few
looked at 'em while the 1/3 damage thing was there, for instance).
> I would say that races who have racial Pens should pay
> while taking NAS.
Well, now Jeff McBride says he is considering putting teeth in NAS,
eliminating the various "penscan anyway" work arounds. That ought to
solve that one, I'd think.
> IFE+ISB IMO cost too much. NRSE should gain no points, etc.
> Growth rate cost should be different like this way
Well, I agree the pop growth is somewhat mispriced, but I think smaller
revisions than yours would make it livable. One biggie is the tie
between narrower hab and cheaper pop growth might be toned down some;
and/or higher pop growth considerably more expensive for races with TT
than it is now.
But much large points for reducing pop growth I'd be careful about - the
HEs could quickly "break", for instance, if one isn't careful.
> But races with growth below 15% say til 8% gain to less points as it is to buy
> enough
> to compensate the low growth IMO, my proposal would make the race-variety
> wider.
I agree it's a problem, and lower growth races ought to be more
livable. Maybe make wider hab things considerably cheaper with lower
max growth?
> The Level 3 box should go away, players who take +75% should get TL 3 (JoaT TL
> 4) for free.
A useful idea IMO.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Jason Cawley
ElCabalero wrote:
> No, I will state categorically that it is flat-out impossible with any
> non-CA. Jason could give you the figures on why no other PRT can get the
> achieved pop growth to even theoretically get that high, I'll just say that it
> could never happen. Even in testbed, 50K is just about maximum for any other
> PRT (maybe 60 for JOAT).
Well, in testbeds only I think more might be possible than that, using a
toy race :-) HG factories and 12% achieved pop growth (doable with an
immunity) will hit the 100k level if all the factories are up - but
you'll need that growth even though you have to find space for over 36
million pop. If you try something like a JOAT with one immune and hab
above 1/10, getting the points from weakness LRTs and fairly expensive
tech, also terraforming early, then drop it alone into an oversized
testbed, ought to be feasible. I don't think such an exercise would
have any real meaning, though :-) Really just engineering the
conditions of the test to make it happen. Whereas CAs with those
tesbeds totals and other things perfectly playable for real games are
easy enough to make...
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Jason Cawley
Jeff_M...@email.msn.com wrote:
For “j” I'm looking at a small number of
> simple changes that will take the edge off what I see as the most significant
> problems.
K.
> My current thinking would runs something like this:
>
> NAS affects race specific abilities. In other words, you would not get any
> pen scanners if you choose NAS no matter what your PRT was.
That would certainly make it a serious penalty LRT, worth the points.
I'd suggest full points for it for SS and PP races in that case. Also,
I'd hope the RB scanner would still be available for SS races but
wouldn't penscan (so NAS doesn't disable stealing for SS races) - but I
am not sure how that would work programming-wise. But with those sort
of things handled, I think it would be a useful change and improve
balance. If it is hard to do, might keep SS low advantage points for
NAS w/ RB only still available. Sure, an expection in that case, but if
it means no stealing from planets I doubt any SS would take NAS.
>
> CA no longer terraform for free. The base terraform cost would be 50. With
> total terraforming it would be 30.
I think that will go a long way to balancing the CA.
> Fuel Mizer engine would get a new fuel usage curve above warp 4. It would no
> longer be possible to use this engine effectively at anything higher than
> warp 4 for anything beyond very short distances.
If it can manage warp 7 runs a fair ways with a lot of fuel, it will
still balance. It's really just the low fuel usage at warp 8 and 9 that
are a problem IMO (e.g. the rad ram is not unbalancing). Also, the cost
of IFE might be reduced somewhat if this change is made (like to 40
points or so).
I think it would add balance. Would make prop tech far more important
and early "generation" things about ships more important too. Generally
increasing variety. And will certainly send some designers (though not
Thomas :-) back to their drawing boards...
>
> I believe that this would cut a big chunk off of the balance problems.
I think they would.
Hope this is helpful.
Sincerely,
Jason Cawley
Randy L King
zome...@caiw.nl (Sjaak Zomer) wrote:
>AR will no longer be able to use their starbases for scanning.
The last time I remember when I played AR with NAS, I didn't have pen
scans with my Ultra Stations and Death Stars..... What version did
they put pen scans in with an AR taking NAS???
>Sjaak Zomer
Randy
TheAncient on #Stars!
gry...@home.msen.com
William Butler
ElCabalero wrote in message
<199804021920...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
>In article <6fvp0n$2vr$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, 101....@germany.net (Thomas
>Pfister) writes:
[snip]
> If you would take issue with that, then show me a non-CA or non-JOAT
design
>that is not a "Toy", and would have reasonable odds of success in a 1v1
contest
>(WM under certain circumstances, I'll grant that).
[snip]
OK, I'll take on any nasty monster CA in a 1 on 1 (say large/distant, or
medium distant) With My Nasty AR design and I'll win or at least give him a
damn good run for his money. The CA might out produce me in absolute
resources, but I'll kill him in minerals. So I can use more of my resources
effectively compared to him. The CA are very powerful and Yes imbalanced
,but unbeatable...No.
I love deflating CA monsters. It takes more than resources to win the game.
Now trying to face them without a Nasty Monster of your own would be suicide
Bill Butler
Alberto BARSELLA
Jeff_M...@email.msn.com writes:
> Virtually every utility
> writer out there is madly updating their code to support the new features
> such as having about twice as much data in FLE and PLA files.
I confirm :)
> NAS affects race specific abilities. In other words, you would not get any
> pen scanners if you choose NAS no matter what your PRT was.
Ok, the points given should be reconsidered then.
JoaT and PP "pay" some prices for the special penscans, maybe they
should get some more when selling them away (PP in particular).
> CA no longer terraform for free. The base terraform cost would be 50. With
> total terraforming it would be 30.
Hmmm...this will mean that CA use OAs on their planets. Lots of added
MM to move those OA around. I found the idea of "automatic"
terraforming simpler. Automatic does not mean immediate as it's now,
the idea someone suggested (1 free terraforming / XXXX population on
the planet or YYYYY resources generated) sounds better. The effect
would be almost the same without moving all the OAs around.
> Fuel Mizer engine would get a new fuel usage curve above warp 4. It would no
> longer be possible to use this engine effectively at anything higher than
> warp 4 for anything beyond very short distances.
Uh?
The only problem with the FM engine is that it's too efficient at warp
8/9, so it's possible to stick with it for a loooong time (up to prop
9 if NRSE is chosen). I would suggest to make it an engine which has a
lower battle rating that warp 6 but goes "well" until warp 7. Warp 8/9
should be a bit worse that the radiating ramscoop.
With this addition prop tech becomes more important and ramscoop
engines become more important, thus an increase in the points given by
NRSE might be appropriate.
Bye,
Alberto
--
Alberto BARSELLA
PGP fingerprint = 13 3F 22 D2 0B 0A D3 25 F1 89 FE B5 82 AD 75 2A
** Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning.
A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing... **
Sjaak Zomer
On Sun, 05 Apr 1998 14:52:09 -0700, Ron Hiler <bnd...@pacbell.net>
wrote:
Jeff wrote:
>> >My current thinking would runs something like this:
>> >
>> >NAS affects race specific abilities. In other words, you would not get any
>> >pen scanners if you choose NAS no matter what your PRT was.
>> Okay.
I wrote:
>> So lets see. JOAT's will lose all pen-scanning PRT based ability. So
>> an LRT can effect an PRT. Great guys, the Lesser is more important the
>> Primary, So we will get an new race called the NASes.
>
>But Sjaak, that's why it's a called *disadvantage*. That's why you get
>points for it in the race wizard. The way it's set up right now, NAS
>doesn't really mean NAS for a lot of the races. It's basically free
>points for the JOATs, SS, PP, etc.
>
>The way Jeff has proposed it, it will actually become a disadvantage
>again, the way, I assume, it was meant to be.
Yes, but NAS is an Lesser RT, now its just upgraded to an Primary
racial Trait. The inbuilt Pen-scans are one of the best assents of the
JOAT's. Doing this, they actually make the NAS a no-option. I for
once, I am not going to play an JOAT without the inbuilt penscans.
Another way of dealing it, would give less advantage points.
>
>>
>> The SS won't be able to use those Chameleon Scanner and ofcourse the
>> Robber Baron scanner. That was the NAS-SS.
>
>I'm assuming they will still be able to use them. Why not? If a ship
>is in deep space, you will still be able to see it without pen-scans,
>and I don't see any reason why the piracy thing would be affected. So
>what's the problem? CS and RBS will just be regular non-pen scanners
>which you can use to steal. Sounds okay to me (and the SS are my
>favorite PRT to play).
No. If they are able to use them, the JOAT should be able to use the
inbuilt penscans also. The CS and RB are also pen-scans. So no no.
The SS are not able to build them. Otherwise they would became better
in hands of an non-Nas race. Think about it.
>> I assume that the WM no longer can penetrate ships if they are NAS.
>
>Why? Same argument as above. Spot a ship in deep space, and a WM will
>know it's design. They just won't be able to detect ships in orbit.
>Again, I don't see the problem.
Its a sort of penn-scan. They are even better then the JOAT's scanners
because they even get through ships.
>> PP have no longer any Pen-scan packets.
>
>I assume so. They'll be non-pen-scan packets. Doesn't break the race.
So one of their main advantage of using Packets to look for new
habitat planets is gone.
>
>>
>> AR will no longer be able to use their starbases for scanning.
>
>That one I *really* don't understand. How will the AR be affected any
>differently than any other race? I'm not real familiar with the AR,
>having never played one (or played against one), so maybe I'm missing
>your reference?
Sorry, just tested this out. I assumed because the JOAT's/SS and all
the other races still could use their penn-abilty the AR should also
be able to use it. I wasn't thinking that the Jeffs could be so unfair
against the AR's.
>> So lets say five NAS guys out of the sky. Great work.
>
>I just don't see how any of that "destroys" any of the PRTs. Sure, it
>weakens a few of them, but again, that's why it's called a
>*disadvantage*, that's what it's supposed to do. The way Jeff has
>proposed it, it seems to me it smooths out all the problems assoicated
>with that particular LRT. NAS will *mean* NAS, unless you can trade an
>ally for a pen-scan vessle. Sounds very reasonable to me.
Its affect PRIMARY traits, which an Lesser never should do. Otherwise
don't call it primary.
BTW are the Jeffs going to make an new demo version. Otherwise new
stars players could be very annoyed when they see that their neat
abilities no longer work. They should at least change the helpfile and
all the text about the NAS.
Lets assume we want to balance things out.
WM will loose extra overthruster while ticking NRSE.
IT will loose transport goodies if they don't have con/prop at cheap
IS will loose baby-in-space if they birth-rate is above 15%.
SD will loose special ship hulls while not ticking ISB.
HE will loose double birth rate while birth race is above 10%
So every race has got his own PRIMARY disadvantage while they are
using one of their LRT. Not only the four present. (AR already got
it).
Now its balanced. <G>
>[clipped all the rest, since I have no comments about it]
>
>Just my $0.02
>
>Ron
Sjaak Zomer
Shane Kearns
On Sun, 05 Apr 1998 16:03:18 GMT, zome...@caiw.nl (Sjaak Zomer)
wrote:
[snip]
>Scout Hull: RadRam Scoop, Fuel Pod costs at (26) 3/2/3/5
[snip]
>The SS have got the Chameleon Scanner at (26) 1/1/1 6.
>
>Triple the minerals.
Not a fair comparison - at tech 26, the chameleon scanner is still
45ly penetrating range, while your scouts are 1040/260ly.
SS have to build frigates with 2-3 ultracloaks to prevent their scouts
being intercepted, while JOAT can just build so many scouts that it is
major MM to shoot them down even if they stay still.
Randy L King
Jason Cawley <jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> CA no longer terraform for free. The base terraform cost would be 50. With
>> total terraforming it would be 30.
>I think that will go a long way to balancing the CA.
But is that going to be 50 points with or without minerals???
>> Fuel Mizer engine would get a new fuel usage curve above warp 4. It would no
>> longer be possible to use this engine effectively at anything higher than
>> warp 4 for anything beyond very short distances.
>If it can manage warp 7 runs a fair ways with a lot of fuel, it will
>still balance. It's really just the low fuel usage at warp 8 and 9 that
>are a problem IMO (e.g. the rad ram is not unbalancing). Also, the cost
>of IFE might be reduced somewhat if this change is made (like to 40
>points or so).
If warp 6 and 7 are 400% and below, I think it would still be OK. But
if 6 and 7 are at 800%, we are truly screwed. The 8 and 9 at 800%
would hurt, but that is supposed to be a "introductory" engine as far
as tech levels go anyway.
>I think it would add balance. Would make prop tech far more important
>and early "generation" things about ships more important too. Generally
>increasing variety.
Another nagging question remains. Will this affect games in
progress???
>Sincerely,
Likewise,
>Jason Cawley
Andrew Turner
On 06 Apr 1998 10:58:17 +0200, Alberto BARSELLA
<ish...@lsh01.univ-lille1.fr> wrote:
>Ok, the points given should be reconsidered then.
>JoaT and PP "pay" some prices for the special penscans, maybe they
>should get some more when selling them away (PP in particular).
I thought changes to the race-wizard points was a no-no. Since all
the changes Jeff McBride mentioned involved game effects, I assume
that's still the case.
Perhaps removing the penscan completely is too drastic, if NAS goes
from "Always choose" to "Never choose" for those races. And there's
the issue of the robber-baron scanner. If you keep the scanner, but
suppress its penetrating scan, there'll be a further anomaly. If SS#1
puts a dolphin scanner on a scout and gives to SS#2, it'll keep its
penscan ability, but if it's an r-b scanner it won't.
What if those races kept their special penscan, but with a reduced
radius?
--
Andrew Turner.
Randy L King
and...@mheurope.co.uk (Andrew Turner) wrote:
>What if those races kept their special penscan, but with a reduced
>radius?
I could live with this for JOAT, PP and SS (I never play SS anyway....
GRIN).
Jeff_M...@email.msn.com
In article <3528c56c....@ftl.msen.com>,
gry...@home.msen.com (Randy L King) wrote:
> >> Fuel Mizer engine would get a new fuel usage curve above warp 4. It
would no
> >> longer be possible to use this engine effectively at anything higher than
> >> warp 4 for anything beyond very short distances.
> >If it can manage warp 7 runs a fair ways with a lot of fuel, it will
> >still balance. It's really just the low fuel usage at warp 8 and 9 that
> >are a problem IMO (e.g. the rad ram is not unbalancing). Also, the cost
> >of IFE might be reduced somewhat if this change is made (like to 40
> >points or so).
> If warp 6 and 7 are 400% and below, I think it would still be OK. But
> if 6 and 7 are at 800%, we are truly screwed. The 8 and 9 at 800%
> would hurt, but that is supposed to be a "introductory" engine as far
> as tech levels go anyway.
Actually, I was seriously considering having the FM's maximum safe speed set
to say 7 and the Warp 5 - 7 fuel usage being pretty average. This engine is
so far out of balance today it isn't even funny.
Jeff
PS Yes, it would affect games in progress which is why I would choose to
make such changes as a separate "j" release. People could choose to put off
upgrading until they had finished their games in progress.
RBKOZ
>That being said, we will consider making the next patch, "j", be a "balance"
patch.
>CA no longer terraform for free. The base terraform cost would be 50. With
>total terraforming it would be 30.
>
>Fuel Mizer engine would get a new fuel usage curve above warp 4. It would no
>longer be possible to use this engine effectively at anything higher than
>warp 4 for anything beyond very short distances.
These would be welcome changes to the PRT's and as you say would go a long way
toward balancing the races. Thank you for supporting your product so well and
for listening to your fans/customers.
B. Koz.
Charles Kelly
gry...@home.msen.com (Randy L King) wrote:
>Jason Cawley <jason...@postoffice.worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>> CA no longer terraform for free. The base terraform cost would be 50. With
>>> total terraforming it would be 30.
>>I think that will go a long way to balancing the CA.
>But is that going to be 50 points with or without minerals???
Yes
Actually I'm not sure what you're referring to now... (this is
the first I've ever heard of a mineral cost for terraforming)
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