quote:
Originally posted by Kagetora:
Lintman you are not twice as old as me unless you happen to be 80. In any event exploits like this could hurt in a multiplayer situation. If I don't know about such an exploit and by using intelligence or ships I discover the ringworld being built and I plan an assault against it based on the time is should take to build it and some exploit makes my plans wrong. I could lose whole assault fleets attacking. Just because it is very expensive doesn't mean somebody won't do it and as all exploits do they will aid the foolish in beating those that are clever. You can't make proper strategy unless things are both consistant and known by you.
Heh - fortunately I'm not 80 years old! (I was just guessing based on the average age of gamers I see on the net).
To clarify: my point about the ringworld speedup being extra expensive was that in a close game all those resources and production capacity you might use to build that ringworld would instead be better used to build an incredibly massive fleet that would annihilate your enemy. As they are now, ringworlds and sphereworlds seem to be in almost all cases, completely impractical to ever build, unless victory is assured and you just want to build them for the heck of it. Speeding up their construction just doesn't seem like it would ever matter in a real game.
I really do sympathize with your concerns about multiplayer cheats. I play an Online FPS called TFC where you play on public servers and have little control over who you play with, and cheating is a major concern there as well.
At one point, there was discovered a method in TFC to do a "quickdet" which gave certain players an advantage. It was mostly unknown for a very long time, (with the developer not reacting to reports of the method), but some players had discovered and used it from the beginning, while others were completely unaware and so were at a big disadvantage. Then the method was exposed, and the community was able to debate on it and was pretty split. About half thought it was fair, and about half thought it was an abuse. (In the quickdet case there are valid arguments for both sides).
While quickdet went into widespread use after that, at least everyone was on level ground that everyone knew about it, and people knew what to look for if someone was using it. That let the assorted leagues rule on its legality (most leagues allowed it) but allowed other leagues and servers to disallow and sanction those that used it there. (Eventually the developers issued a patch that removed the quickdet ability, deciding the issue for good.)
Anyway, my point is that with widespread knowledge of the quickdet method, players could then adjust their play to expect it, or could seek out players and leagues that rejected it.
Above, you say "You can't make proper strategy unless things are both consistant and known by you.". I totally agree, which is why I think exposure of these abuses is better. I'd rather know about a possible abuse that could be used against me, and so be able to look for it/prepare against it, than be surprised by it by a player who got it off some "cheats" web site.
Blah blah blah - enough yapping from me!
Re: Ring and Sphereworlds
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