Is this a bug?
 

I've been playing around with the simulator a lot lately, since I've to redesign all of my ships for my not-so-smart AI admiral to use in PBW games. I did some experiments with DNs armed with both alligence subverters and boarding parties, and I noticed that they were capturing MC-controlled enemy ships with their subverters! (I tried my ships out in tactical mode by putting them on full auto)

Question: Is it intentional that you can capture a MC-controlled enemy ship with subverters after the MC is destroyed?

I've checked that none of the boarding parties on my ships were used, so if the answer to my question is "no" then this must be a bug either way - either the boarding parties were not properly displayed as "used" or my ships were really capturing MC-controlled enemy ships with subverters.


[This message has been edited by CW (edited 04 August 2001).]

Re: Is this a bug?
 

Send it to Aaron.

Re: Is this a bug?
 

its been around for a while. whats really rude is that you can hit a ship with a computer virus then nail it with your subverter. combine that with religious tech, and you have one mean fleet. sometimes.

I thought it was supposed to have been fixed in 1.35 or so, but i guess not.

------------------
"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

Re: Is this a bug?
 

I think the key here is that you are seeing this on the simulator. Damage to components doesn't show up on the simulator. So with the scenario you are describing, there would be no way to know whether the boarding parties or the allegiance subverter is the one doing the capturing. Have you seen this also happen in the game as well as in the simulator?

Change your ship design so they only have one or the other, and then run your tests. My guess is you will see that you can only capture the MC controlled ships with the boarding parties.

If I am incorrect, it does need reported to MM.

Geoschmo

Re: Is this a bug?
 

Geoschmo, I was running my simulations in tactical mode by putting my ships on auto, so I got to see what ever damage the ships sustained. I've tried your suggestion and and I was right... the ships were really capturing MC-controlled enemies with their subverters. In fact I couldn't make them capture ships with boarding parties, they keep destroying their targets or running away to a corner.

The AI is more amazing then I thought. When I put my ships on test with subverters and their normal weapons alone (ie. no boarding parties) it was so skillful that my ships destroyed every component on every enemy ship *except* for their armour plates! Then they would convert the enemies with their subverters. It makes sense if you are trying to *board* the enemy ships, but with subverters...?

Re: Is this a bug?
 

I don't know then CW. I was thinking that in the simulator you couldn't see which components got damaged, even in tactical, but I see now I was wrong. I think it used to be that way. Was that fixed in a patch or something?

It sounds like you have found a bug there.

Re: Is this a bug?
 

CW IMO this is a feature not a bug. The advantage of the psychic trait against human players would be almost zero, if there was no possibility to take over ships with master computers. So I am absolutely against a change. I personally would not install any update that would alter it.

Re: Is this a bug?
 

Quote from 'History.txt' se4 ver 1.41:

Version 1.37:
1. Changed - Increased cost to retrofit.
2. Added - Command Line option -nd (which should be placed at the very end
of the line) which will prevent any display of dialogs.
3. Added - Exit Code when running the exe from the command line.
0 - Successful.
1 - Invalid Master Password.
2 - Invalid Player Password.
4. Fixed - When downsizing a ship using retrofit, the number of damaged
components display might show too high a number.
5. Fixed - Allegiance Converters should not work against ships with
Master Computers.

Note # 5. Converters should NOT work vs. computers, the high cost of MC should make most fleets unable to have one on every ship though...So maybe this(like intell) was not successfully fixed....


------------------
"And what the hell would you know about sanity?" demanded Beatrice. "There are depressed lemmings on the edge of cliffs who've got a better grasp on reality than you have. And more common sense."--Simon R. Green 'Deathstalker Rebellion'.

"We are all...the sum of our scars"....(paraphrased) Matt. R. Stover-'Blade of Tyshalle'.

Re: Is this a bug?
 

Just to make it clear: allegiance subverters do not work against ships with an intact master computer (and as far as I know they never did). However if the master computer is destroyed first the ship becomes vulnerable to the allegiance subverter. And IMO this is how it should be.
The cost of a master computer is not a real concern for larger ships. So if you make ships even with a destroyed master computer resistent to the allegiance subverter, the psychic trait would loose its main advantage. And all AI empires, who never use master computers, would get weaker compared to human players. And that's certainly not what I want.

Re: Is this a bug?
 

Q, one thing that you have forgotten is boarding parties, that's what you SHOULD use against ships with MCs. If you let subverters take over ships with its MC destroyed then the subverters would be too powerful and decisive, besides they are supposed to convert CREWS. In my solo game there are only 5 subverter-armed ships in every 23-ship fleets, and I haven't fired a single round from other weapons for many, many turns.

Re: Is this a bug?
 

CW I did not forget boarding parties, but IMO they are not very useful. Unless you use tactical combat you almost always end up with boarded ships that are severely damaged and useless. And with the self destruction device its very easy to make boarding impossible and destroy even the attacking ships. That are the reasons I almost never used boarding in SE III and it didn't change for SE IV.
Now is it realistic that the allegiance subverter works on a ship without crew: of course not, but I don't care about realism in a game. And is it realistic that if you destroy the master computer the ship will still be able to fire and to continue to move (even at very low speed) if no crew is on board???
I think the possibility to convert ships with master computers (after their destruction) gives much more challenge to the game: I play at the moment a very advanced game, where I am the strongest empire with more than double the score of number two. However number 2 are the CueCappa and I still loose some combats to them because of the conVersion of my ships with master computers (I use my AI modification of the CueCappa and they combine computer virus with allegiance subverters on their ships). Without that challenge I would stopped this game already.

Re: Is this a bug?
 

Without you being able to capture ships with destroyed MCs the Physic AI races would be at a severe disadvantage. I have yet to see a standard race use boarding or MC's. If it didn't work this way you would remove once of the game balances as everything has a counter, except the Talisman which should be change to 100% to hit IMHO.