O, or is it 0? Bug or not?

Randallw · #1 August 19th, 2007, 09:09 AM

I noticed that I somehow had 2 ship designs with the same name. I've been puzzling how it could happen but I just figured out that 0 and O look almost the same in SE5, so much that you can't really tell the difference. It seems to me this could be used as some way of tricking enemy into attacking what they know is an unarmed ship design when in fact it's a warship.

BlueTemplar · #2 August 19th, 2007, 11:03 AM

Also you could make all your ship designs encrypted, like 00101011101 and 00100111001...

Suicide Junkie · #3 August 19th, 2007, 11:23 AM

And of course, the ever popular "Rename ship and add 50 to the sequence number"

Sure, its the first ship off the assembly line, by why can't we name it "Devastator 0082" just to mess with our enemies?

Raapys · #4 August 19th, 2007, 02:04 PM

Personally I think the enemy shouldn't really be able to know the name of the ship/design in the first place.

Suicide Junkie · #5 August 19th, 2007, 02:11 PM

That's the problem with having spotlights and painting the name in giant letters on the hull.

Raapys · #6 August 19th, 2007, 03:11 PM

True, but it seems to be a human trait. Notice in B5 and other sci-fi's how other races' ships don't have those features.

BlueTemplar · #7 August 19th, 2007, 08:33 PM

You should be able to see the enemy design, otherwise things like design stealing will get useless and you won't be able to plan ahead of the battle.
Seeing the ship name is not realistic, but you need a way to identify dfferent enemy ships. Maybe a ship should have as many names as there are players in the game, and you would be able to choose how you want to call the enemy ships.

Randallw · #8 August 20th, 2007, 12:25 AM

I assumed renumbering ships to make your fleet look bigger was standard? It's certainly something I do by default, unless, you know, I can't be bothered.

In this case it's useful because a neighbour has a ship type with an O in it. He also uses the same shipset as me. I could run around with ships that appear as the same design such that someone else will think he is giving me ships. If they're an enemy they might even attack my "ally" despite his refutations. Just like that an enemy, and a prospective enemy, you know another player, are weakened.

Randallw · #9 August 20th, 2007, 12:31 AM

I am a big fan of the Starfire books and in particular the Bug War. I really do wish it were possible that you name the ships you encounter instead of the owner giving them names. The Arachnids in the Bug War never communicated with the good guys, and aren't of the frame of mind to bother giving names to their ships anyway. The allies end up just naming bug ships stuff like "Antelope", "Antelope-B". Sort of like how NATO gives arbitrary names to Russian aircraft that has nothing to do with their russian name. Did you know there is a Russian fighter called the Platypus, which considering it's nose makes sense, but NATO just uses a word starting with F, as usual.

Suicide Junkie · #10 August 20th, 2007, 12:54 AM

Quote:

Randallw said:In this case it's useful because a neighbour has a ship type with an O in it. He also uses the same shipset as me. I could run around with ships that appear as the same design such that someone else will think he is giving me ships. If they're an enemy they might even attack my "ally" despite his refutations. Just like that an enemy, and a prospective enemy, you know another player, are weakened.

Looking at the picture lets you see the shipset it came from. You'd have to retrofit to make it have your shipset, and that defeats the purpose... you'd just as easily name your regular ships.

Quote:

I assumed renumbering ships to make your fleet look bigger was standard?

Except when your stuff actually does have those huge numbers. It seems a waste of time to rename a ship from "Devastator 0237" to "Devastator 0624"