PBW ethics, opinions please.

[DavidG]

As far as I am concerned all 'exploits' in PBW should be allowed unless explicitly Banned by the host. (now before you flame me please finish reading). Because who's to say what an exploit is or what is just a good legal strategy? I read an old post were a certain racial characteristic combination was called an exploit?? WTF?? As far as I am concerned if the game lets you do it it is legal. I do not know what the EB exploit is but I think I know what the TDM one is (and No I would not use this because it is an obvious bug) BUT If I happen to be a player who does not read these forms and use the TDM weapon I would be seriously pissed if I got accused of cheating. And what about non obvious bugs? Say I'm playing pre ver 1.78 (and again don't follow this forum closely) and discover that I can launch mines as long as less than 100 were in orbit. Shall I be considered unethical or a cheater if I do so? Heck I once got accused of cheating for picking the Ancient Race trait.

IMHO the bottom line is that if an 'exploit' is considered unethical it should be made clear by the host prior to the start of a PBW game. And although I can understand why keeping exploits a secret is desirable by some I think they should be made public so we could agree to ban them or at least know when they've been used against us and if allowed in the future to defend against them.

[tesco samoa]

Dg... no flames from me.

It is up to the game admin to make sure exploits / or unfair stuff do not happen.

The 8 turn Emergancy Build and trade the planets one is hard to catch. I am hoping that it is corrected in the next patch which i hear may or may not come out before MOO3

The mothball one was removed... which is good.

The TDM one is up to the game admin.
As there are patches to deal with it or a gentle mans agreement.

[Gozra]

I find this an interesting thread. I really think there are few outright cheats in this game. And they all involve hacking.
I do know one player that has a list of folks he will play and not play with. I think that is a very good Idea. I also get the impression that as a community we have managed to keep it fairly clean. My hat is off to all of us.
Exploiting the internal mechanics of the game is a much slippery issue. knowingly using an obvious bug that gives an unfair advantage should get you on the blacklist. But trading for tech, forming alliances, and the Sneak attack are all valid 'choices'.
Any one want to start a poll? On what is gamey or not gamey?
For instance
Multiple ship training faclities on several planets to reduce your training time. Gamey? or not gamey?

[Ruatha]

What is this term Gamey? Never heard of it before, it seems to be bad?

[Fyron]

Multiple ship training faclities on several planets to reduce your training time. Gamey? or not gamey?

Well... the facilities do say "One Per Planet effective", and not "One Per Sector". So, there is no reason why you can't have more than one working in a sector on different planets. I do not know if this was intentional or not on the part of MM, but that is how it is IMHO.

[spoon]

Originally posted by Gozra:
Multiple ship training faclities on several planets to reduce your training time. Gamey? or not gamey?

Define "gamey"...

[Gozra]

Issue is not that the game allows it. The issue is if it is gamey or not. Grin and I feel what gamey is just have a hard time explaining it.