Free Ships cheat?

JLXC · #1 February 17th, 2001, 07:57 AM

Wow I tried the "+20%" Maint. reduction plus the Merchant pick and you get FREE Maint.!! Wow... I had 100's of ships in no time and stomped the CPU with hordes of wussy ships...

Man would you guys consider it a cheat in multiplay?

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I'm an Idiot? Well if that's not the kettle smelling the pot's back!

Talenn · #2 February 17th, 2001, 09:01 AM

No,, I wouldnt consider it a cheat, but an exploit of the system. Personally, I dont think the 'cost' of Maintenance Reduction is anywhere near high enough. For my Data, it is set at 200. It seems to be far more balanced at that level.

Talenn

raynor · #3 February 17th, 2001, 10:41 AM

I agree with Talenn. I think it should take 2000 racial points to get your end result maintenance down from 25% to 15%. And I think the jump from 15 down to 10% should cost between 1000 and 2000 additional racial points. I would never let maintenance be less than 10%.

Has anyone thought of modifying the AI files to create an empire that uses 0% maintenance? That might be interesting to see. I've heard different folks say that the AI always seems to be scrapping its base space yards when its maintenance costs get too high. Maybe you could create a more potent AI if it didn't have to pay maintenance?

Sinapus · #4 February 18th, 2001, 01:00 AM

Maybe the maintenance fee should be a flat 30 percent of the ship cost and the bonuses should be how much is lopped off that maintenance fee?

Eg, if a ship pays 1000 minerals and you have 120% maintenance, you take 20% off that 1000 cost, not lower maintenance cost to 10%...

It would make a maintenance bonus less powerful, but still somewhat useful. All those resources you save even with a tiny bonus can be helpful...

Hm... I just opened up the game and went to the race characteristics and found that maintenance doesn't go above 120%, so adding that and the 5% from merchants doesn't seem to do much more than lower it to 5%.

I guess -that- could keep you from having completely free ships, and it starts getting -very- expensive for maintenance points after about 110% or so.

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"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

[This message has been edited by Sinapus (edited 17 February 2001).]

raynor · #5 February 18th, 2001, 02:49 AM

With the Merchant 5% maint. cultural bonus and Maintenance set at 120. You are now paying, 25% - 25% = 0% maintenance.

With regard to your suggestion. If a ship costs 1000 minerals, and you want 120 maintenance to mean that you knock off 20% of 1000 from the maintenance, this lowers the maintenance of the ship from 250 minerals to 50 minerals or 5% of the cost of the ship. This is how it currently works.

Choose the Merchant culture for the extra 5% maintenance, and you pay 0% maintenance...

Marty Ward · #6 February 18th, 2001, 03:52 AM

I think it should be a percentage of the base cost. A +5 in maintenance means you pay 5% more than the base amount for maintenance and a -5 means you pay less.
If you have a +5 in research, production, SY rate etc. this is how it works. It should be consistent.

Atrocities · #7 February 18th, 2001, 04:04 AM

Just for giggles, I set up one of my AI players with this bonus. Man talk about under used. The AI does not know that it has this bonus, and builds ship the same way it normally does.

(AI bonus set to max.)

Too bad. It would be kind of fun to battle a 100 ships 50 turns into the game.

raynor · #8 February 18th, 2001, 04:35 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Atrocities:
Just for giggles, I set up one of my AI players with this bonus. Man talk about under used. The AI does not know that it has this bonus, and builds ship the same way it normally does.

(AI bonus set to max.)

Too bad. It would be kind of fun to battle a 100 ships 50 turns into the game.

Thanks for trying this. I was curious what would happen. I'm assuming you have fixed the base defence bug in your files?

Have you applied the latest Mod Pack? Do you want to try modding the EA, Sergetti or Darlok and see what happens?

Triumvir Emphy · #9 February 18th, 2001, 04:43 AM

They still build ships in normal quantities, they waste a lot of resources a turn (just evaporate)

Sinapus · #10 February 18th, 2001, 04:56 AM

quote:
Originally posted by raynor:
With the Merchant 5% maint. cultural bonus and Maintenance set at 120. You are now paying, 25% - 25% = 0% maintenance.

With regard to your suggestion. If a ship costs 1000 minerals, and you want 120 maintenance to mean that you knock off 20% of 1000 from the maintenance, this lowers the maintenance of the ship from 250 minerals to 50 minerals or 5% of the cost of the ship. This is how it currently works.
Choose the Merchant culture for the extra 5% maintenance, and you pay 0% maintenance...

Okay, I was looking at the manual, which said maintenance was 30%, while the settings.txt file says 25%.

Actually, what I meant was the percentage reduction reduce the amount. I.e., you have a ship that is 1000 minerals, 30% (okay, I seem obsessed w/making maintenance 30% sorry) of that is 300, so the unmodified cost is 300. THEN start calculating the maintenance bonus. I.e., 5% of 300 is 15 so the maintenance is reduced by that amount to 285.

Of course, that makes a maintenance bonus a bit less useful.

So maybe what should be done is either raise the maintenance % back to 30, or lower the max maintenance bonus to 115% so taking the merchant bonus won't give you free ships.

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--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

[This message has been edited by Sinapus (edited 18 February 2001).]