Tug of War - Progress Thread

spoon · #1 March 20th, 2003, 02:24 AM

This sounds like a job for the Worms of Woe.

Gandalph · #2 March 20th, 2003, 02:50 AM

OK, some interest!! Let me answer some of these questions.

Megatrain - The catchy name is "Tug of War", get it? The Tug has 3 indestructable components, the bridge and 2 ion engines 1 (and these are the only engines, so ship movement is 2), so it can still move when damaged. It is otherwise a defenseless ship (no armor, shields or weapons) which will cause it to run for a corner during battles.

If you can't pay the maintenance, I wouldn't suggest trying to capture it, unless it's a Last ditch effort to prevent someone else from getting it home.
If, for some reason including lack of maintenance, the Tug gets destroyed, the Game Master can build and place a new ship in as few as 3 turns.

If you analyze the ship, you will not get components as they are racial specific and analyzing the ship is not the object of the game.

The Game Master pays the maintenance until the Tug gets captured.

Because the components are racial specific, noone can make thier own.

To everyone - The idea of high maintenance was to force empires to be balanced economically and militarily. Your empire has to be able to afford the maintenance and protect the ship from all the others.

A question came up on IRC Last night about alliances. I do not have a problem with forming any alliance, just realize that there can only be 1 winner, whoever gets the Tug to his Homeworld.

The Mod needs to be installed at PBW before I can setup the game. I will post in this thread when that happens. Feel free to continue to ask questions and I will continue to answer them.

Gandalph

MegaTrain · #3 March 20th, 2003, 05:07 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gandalph:
If you analyze the ship, you will not get components as they are racial specific and analyzing the ship is not the object of the game.

Well, I meant disassembling and analyzing the Tug as a method of self-destruction. (I assumed that "fire-on" wouldn't work if it had indestructable components.) This might be a Last-ditch effort if the enemy fleet is closing in and you don't want them to capture the Tug ship from you.

We could probably just make a house rule against this, and beat up any player who uses this tactic.

I wonder if there is a way to prevent someone from retrofitting this ship? As the special components are racial techs, you couldn't make a design incorporating those elements, but you could still "gut" the ship by retrofitting it to "standard" components, then zip it back to base with movement 13 and claim a win (or fire on and destroy it, I suppose).

UNLESS you had a non-standard hull type that nobody else had access to. Then you could not design a ship to upgrade it to. Can you make a hull size a racial tech? (This is probably the easiest option).

If that wasn't possible, to prevent retrofitting you could just make a super-SMALL ship size, that way you couldn't retrofit anything onto it, even removing the special components. If it was size 5kt, for example, but still required a bridge, life support, and crew quarters, you'd never be able to make a new legal design. The special bridge would count as all three component types to make it work. You could even MOD movement-2 into the hull itself, and make the bridge the full size of the ship.

[ March 20, 2003, 15:35: Message edited by: MegaTrain ]

geoschmo · #4 March 20th, 2003, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gandalph:
The Mod needs to be installed at PBW before I can setup the game. I will post in this thread when that happens. Feel free to continue to ask questions and I will continue to answer them.

Gandalph

Gandalph, you can setup the game on PBW anytime you'd like. Just set it as stock 1.84 but state clearly in the description that it's a mod game and you can even put a link to where the people can get the mod. This will allow you to get started on getting people joined in the game. I will have the mod ready for you by the time the game is ready to start and can change the mod for the game then. Actually as long as the mod is on there by the time the players all get their first turn in you can even start the game without the mod on PBW. But it shouldn't take me that long.

Geoschmo

[ March 20, 2003, 15:28: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Gandalph · #5 March 21st, 2003, 06:23 PM

Megatrain - Due to the excessive cost of the bridge, I don't think it can be retro'ed, but I could be wrong (I will test this evening). The Tug is escort size. The Game Master would have to keep an eye on the Tug to verify it's 2 MP's, until I revise the mod to make a different, and racial specific, hull size. Thanks for catching that.

I will set up the first match this evening and players will be on a first come first served basis. I honestly expected a greater response to this as I thought most people would think like me and look for some different way of playing on PBW. Well, we'll see how the sing up goes.

Have fun, and PEACE!!

Gandalph

Gandalph · #6 March 22nd, 2003, 08:15 PM

I have revised the mod as it was possible to retro the design. The Tug is now a racial specific 100kt transport and I gave it 3 MP's and supply generation of 50 per turn.

The game is now setup at PBW, which you can get to by clicking here. We will start the first game when we get 8 players.

Gandalph · #7 March 25th, 2003, 03:57 AM

Wow, had to bump this off page 2.

We have 3 players now, looking for 8 total. Anyone else up for an interesting challenge?