PBW ethics, opinions please.

[dogscoff]

"You want the moon on a stick"

You could mod that quite easily in planetsize.txt

[Gozra]

Originally posted by DavidG:

quote:

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Originally posted by Gozra:
I have read this thread from stem to stern and I have yet to hear of anything as Gamey. Therefore I am doubling the prize to 20 Galatic Credits.

You might as well raise it to a couple billion. Because if you see nothing wrong with the tactic SumariaProgrammer mentioned then clearly you are someone who thinks anything and everything is OK in the game.

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I am unable to find this reference.
And I do think if its allowed by the game you can do it. But I also think Gentlebeings rules for playing the game should be followed. For instance I agree with GEO that no trading should limited so as to make the game more interesting.

[couslee]

I believe he is refrencing the post made, where a player traded an un visited system for an AI home planet. That was very gamey imo. I also think retro-series building is gamey. the 50% max is there for game balance reasons, and to prevent abuse (retro-series sphereworlds). Doing a retro-series bypasses a game design. retro fitting while in mothball does not. big difference. retro-series building is gamey imo.

Taking advantage of a stupid AI is also gamey, IE trading an unvisited system for a homeworld. The gamey part is in the thought of even attempting this, not in the fact the AI was stupid enough to agree to it.

Those that think it is not gamey, are of the same class of people that think nothing is a crime if you don't get caught. All I say to that, is know who your entering into a MP game with. If you accept a game challange from people that feel anything goes, then don't complain later that they lived up to their reputation. or, try and be more cheezy than they are. Hacking game files is blantant cheating, and if done will suceed in noone playing a game with you again. I am talking about questionable tactics, not outright cheating.

send the credits to realpissed_2000@yahoo.com. thank you.

[Fyron]

Retro-series building can possibly double the cost of building the ship. It is balanced already.

[Wardad]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Retro-series building can possibly double the cost of building the ship. It is balanced already.

Very true.

Also in war when maximum effort is needed, are the guys in the repair garages and shops allowed to sit idle for lack of repair work?
No Way!!! They and their tools will be put to work somehow on the new stuff even if the ineffiency raise the costs.

[Wanderer]

Originally posted by couslee:
I also think retro-series building is gamey. the 50% max is there for game balance reasons, and to prevent abuse

Personally I've never understood the need for an arbitrary limit. Well this post got me thinking and I think I've worked out how to abuse the retrofit system (took me a while as I'm not sneaky enough!) What I'm thinking of would probably be time-effective but very costly.

On a similar note, I'd submit that my refitting of entire fleets in one turn whilst sitting deep in enemy territory (I tend to pack a lot of repair bays on fleet support ships, plus the odd one with a space yard) is another gamey way of using the retro-fitting system, although I'd not thought of it in that way before. It doesn't seem right that ships could perform major overhauls on eachother whilst sitting in a storm close to an enemy homeworld

The emphasis should be on making major reconstructions slow, not outlawing them altogether, especially as long as there's a simple way around any limit. I quite like the way MOO2 does it (assigns the refit to the planet as a construction queue item) - although the fact that the ship disappears for the duration of the refit is a little strange.

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Ch-ching! That'll be two pence, please. Take away or eat in?

[geoschmo]

Retroseries not only can double, it almost assuradly will come close to doubling the cost of the ship. When you factor in the 20% extra for the new comps, the 30% disposal fee for the old comps, and the maintenance you pay for each turn the ship is sitting while being worked on. You can save some if your base maint is lower, and some if you set up the retroseries so that you remove as few components as possible. And as far as speed it it pretty much equivalent to the speed you would get by building the ship on Emergency build.

So you can build a ship on emergency build in two thirds the time and for the same cost, but are penalized by reduced ship yard effectivenss afterwards. Or you can build the ship in two thirds the time with no reduced effectivness afterwards, by spending twice the resources to build it. And by a considerable amount of added micromanagment which doesn't really translate into game terms. It's actually quite an elegant balance IMHO when building a single ship.

Where it becomes sort of gamey however is when you consider constructing a bunch of ships. By doing retroseries on all of them you can free up your space yard to pump out another ship every turn. Your first ship isn't built any faster than emergency build, and only a few turns faster than normal build, but you get another the next turn, and another the next turn after that, on and on forever until you run out of resources or don't have enough repair capacity in sector to fix all the ships you retrofit in each turn.

Because of this, and the little trick Wanderer mentioned about retrofitting while you move your fleet, I have no problem not doing it in games if playing with people that object to it's use. And I prefer that the game owner specify if it is allowed or not, so I know noone else is doing it either. But if everyone understands it and agrees it's ok, I have no problem with it.

Geoschmo